
'/V ''^ 



i ^ 




>:. 






... ^^4! 



if ' ' 



iV M-'. • 




Ciass _ilAjiiiJ 
Book ~I1 



<2 *^ 



Gopyriglit^ii 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PHILLIPS BIBLE INSTITUTE SERIES 

of Efficiency Text-books for Bible Schools and Churches 



First Year's Course 

HOW TO SET THE CHURCH IN ORDER 
By Martin L. Pierce 

HOW TO BE SAVED 
By M. M. Davis 

HOW TO BUILD UP A BIBLE SCHOOL 
By P. H. Welshimer 

Second Year's Course 

HOW THE DISCIPLES BEGAN AND GREW 
By M. M. Davis 

HOW TO PROMOTE CHRISTIAN UNION 
By Frederick D. Kershner 

how to become an efficient sun- 
Day-school teacher 

By Prof. Wm. A. McKeever 

Each, cloth, 12mo, net, $1.00, postpaid. 
Paper, 50c., postage lOc extra. 



These text-books nuere prepared especially for Efficiency 
Classes to be conducted hy the local church; for Organ- 
ized Bible-school Classes and for Teacher-training 
Classes. They can be ordered from the Phillips Bible 
Institute, Canton, O., or The Standard Publishing 
Company, Cincinnati, O. 



PHILLIPS BIBLE INSTITUTE SERIES 

of Efficiency Text-books for Bible Schools and Churches 



HOW TO BE SAVED 



A STUDY OF FIRST PRINCIPLES 

MY M. DAVIS, A.M. 

Minister Ross ji<venue Christian Church, Dallas, Tex. 
Author of *' Change of Heart;'' "^ueen Esther;" 
'* Elijah;" "First Principles;" ''The Elder- 
ship;" "The Restoration Movement of 
the Nineteenth Century," and 
"Hoivthe Disciples Began 
and Greiv." 






Cincinnati 
The Standard Publishing Company 



^4- 



S3 



Copyright, 1 9 1 4, by 
The Stcindard Publishing Ccmpauiy 



FEB 27 1915 






To thi Faculty and Student Body 

of 

Phillips Bible Institute 

This Volume is Dedicated 

by the Author 



CONTENTS 

Foreword 9 

I. 

IS THERE A GOD? 

PAGE 

Introductory — Perfection Not to Be Expected — Two- 
fold Argument — Argument from Without — This Argu- 
ment Like Gibraltar — Argument from Within — No Half 
Hinges — Impossible to Get Away from God — Review.. 11 

II. 

GOD SPEAKING TO KIS CHILDREN. 

Introductory — Unity of the Bible — Remember Who 
Wrote It — The Number of Writers — Character of 
the Writers — Fifteen Hundred Years Writing — World 
Changes During This Time — How Account for This 
Unity — Vitality of the Bible — Books Die Because They 
Are Commonplace — Because Displaced by Better Books 
— Because They Are False — Utility of the Bible — Seen 
in Geographical Survey — Seen in Law — Seen in Politics 
— Seen in Literature — Seen in Painting — Seen in Sculp- 
ture — Seen in Music — Seen in Woman — Adaptation of 
the Bible — Indestructibility of the Bible — Progressive- 
ness of the Bible — ^Revelations of the Bible — Review... 25 

III. 

HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Introductory — First Want — Baptism of Jesus — Calm- 
ing the Storm — Feeding the Multitude — Raising Lazarus 
— Second Want — The Unbeliever — The Believer — The 
Penitent Believer — The Backslider — Third Want — 

Fourth Want — Review 43 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

IV. 
THE WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST. 

PAGE 

Introductory — Manifestations of Wisdom — In Child- 
hood — In the Sermon on the Mount — Church and State 
— Marriage in Heaven — The Great Commandment — The 
Adulterous Woman — The Parables — Peculiarities of 
This Wisdom — No Mistakes — Spoke W^ithout Effort — 
Spoke Without Hesitation or Consultation — Never Ex- 
pressed a Doubt — Simple Language — Marvelous Sweep, 
Perfection and Power — Full of Inspiration — Small in 
Bulk— How Account for All This — Not in His Long 
Life and Rich Experience — Not in Superior Advantages 
—But Because He is God Manifest in the Flesh — Mani- 
festations of Purity — Free from Selfishness — Free from 
Ambition — Free from Pride — Free from Covetousness — 
Free from Revenge — Free from Sectarianism — Com- 
pleteness of His Character — A Few Witnesses — Review. 63 

V. 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 

Introductory — Conceded Fact s — Infidel Position — 
Christian Position — The Trilemma — Were the Witnesses 
Deceived — Were They Deceivers — They Were Reliable 
Witnesses — Corroborative Testimony — Influence of the 
Resurrection on the Disciples — Triumph of the Truth — 
The Lord's Supper — The Lord's Day — Review 85 

VL 
FAITH. 
Introductory — ^What is Faith — How is Faith Pro- 
duced — The Scope of Faith — The Object of Faith — 
Review 99 

VII. 

REPENTANCE. 

Introductory — What is Repentance — It is Not Sor- 
row — It is Not Sorrow and Confession Combined — It is 



CONTENTS 7 

PAGE 

Not Godly Sorrow — It is Not Reformation — It is Sor- 
row for Sin Resulting in Reformation of Life — Wliy 
Men Should Repent — Because God Commands It — Be- 
cause of God's Goodness — Because of God's Warnings 
— Because the Impure Can Not Enter Heaven — Fruits 
of Repentance — Confession of Sin — Prayer for Forgive- 
ness — Restitution — A New Life — Review HI 

VIII. 
CONVERSION. 
Introductory — Clearing the Ground — Miraculous Aid 
in Conversion — Dead in Trespasses and Sin — A Bible 
Example — Filing Objections Against This Theory — It 
Turns Attention Away from the Gospel — It Destroys 
Human Responsibility — It makes God a Cruel Master — 
It Makes Infidels — What is Conversion — The Aim and 
End of Conversion — Review 125 

IX. 
CHANGE OF HEART. 
Introductory — What is the Heart — It Believes — It 
Loves — It Wills — It Condemns — How is the Heart 
Changed — The Intellect by Testimony — The Affections 
by Loveliness — The Will by Motives — The Conscience 
by Right-doing — An Example — Review 139 

X. 

THE CONFESSION. 

Introductory — Origin of the Confession — Scope of 
the Confession— "Thou art the Christ"— "The Son"— 
"Of the Living God" — The Confession and Baptism — 
Why Make the Confession — For Our Own Good — For 
the Good of Others — For the Good of Christ — Review. 151 

XL 

BAPTISM. 
Introductory — Four Figures — Baptism of the Earth 
— Baptism in the Sea — Burial and Resurrection — Suffer- 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ings of the Saviour — Four Facts — ^John's Baptism — Bap- 
tism at ^non — Baptism of Jesus — Baptism of the 
Eunuch — Four Other Proofs — Definition of Baptism — 
Testimony of the Greeks — ^Immersion Satisfies the Soul 
— It is the Safe Way — Appeal to the Eye — Design of 
Baptism — Subjects of Baptism — Argument from the 
Covenants — There Was No Church During Old Testa- 
ment Times — No Church During the Personal Ministry 
of Christ — Differences Between the Covenants — House- 
hold Baptisms — Objections to Infant Baptism — It Re- 
verses the Divine Order — It Obliterates the Distinction 
Between the Church and the World — It Does No Good 
— It Ignores the Power of Choice — Review 165 

XII. 

EVIDENCE OF PARDON. 

Introductory — Character of the Witnesses — God's 
Spirit — 'Man's Spirit — What is the Testimony — Not a 
New Revelation — Not Our Feelings — Not Our Sincerity 
— But the Joint Testimony of the Two Witnesses — A 
Picture — Review 195 



FOREWORD 

This book is both an abbreviation and expansion 
of the author's work on "First Principles." A con- 
siderable part of that volume is omitted, and much 
new matter is introduced, so that while the two are 
at many points the same, yet they are so different 
as to leave each a distinct and separate sphere of 
usefulness. 

This change is because of a general desire for a 
book setting forth the distinctive features of the 
Restoration movement in a manner better fitted for 
use in colleges, efficiency church congresses and 
adult classes in the Bible school. 

Hoping and praying for the blessings of the 
Father upon it, it is sent forth on its mission by 

The Author. 
Dallas, Texas, 



I. 

IS THERE A GOD? 



11 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER I. 

1. Introductory. 

2. Twofold Answer. 

a. Argument from Without. 

b. Argument from Within. 



12 



I. 

Is There a God? 

A principle is a great mother 
truth containing many other 
truths, or a fundamental law on which other laws 
rest, or from which they may be derived. "In all 
government truly republican,'* says Webster, "men 
are nothing — principle is everything." Let us there- 
fore inquire as to what is the principle or princples 
which underlie, permeate and mould the life of the 
Christian. And in this inquiry we will not assume 
the "first principles," and begin far down the line 
of development, but our first inquiry shall be in 
regard to the existence of Him from whom every 
truly religious thought is derived, and in whom and 
on whom they must always abide : "Is there a Godf" 

The first questions in the heart of the intelligent 
and devout searcher after truth are not those rela- 
ting to the commandments, ordinances and promises 
of the New Testament, but those concerning God. 
He goes back of all such questions as faith, repent- 
ance and baptism, and asks, "Is there a God? and, 
if so, how can I know him, and his will concerning 
me?" 

A large volume might well be written in answer 
to these questions, and yet a helpful answer may be 
given in a small one. In fact, the answer must be 
condensed and simple or it can not reach the masses. 

13 



14 HOW TO BE SAVED 

They have neither the time, the culture nor the 
inclination to read large and learned books. The 
wolf is at the door, and must be driven away, or the 
wife and little ones will go hungry. But they are 
willing and anxious to hear, and their hungry hearts 
are starving for knowledge, but it must not be 
stilted and stately, but primer-like, brief and simple. 
But these people must not expect an absolutely 
perfect answer, for we know nothing with absolute 
perfection. We only know ourselves and our loved 
ones in part, and yet this partial knowledge is 
ample for present purposes. Bunyan's blind daugh- 
ter never saw the face of her father, but she knew 
enough of him to love him, and bask in the many 
blessings which came from him. She felt his fond 
caresses ; she heard his tender voice ; and her life 
was sweetened and strengthened by his goodness and 
love. We are God's blind children. No man hath 
seen him at any time. But our faith, resting on 
indisputable evidence, has heard his message ; and 
our consciences quickened by the message, and 
cleansed by the blood of Calvary, have received it; 
our hearts have been filled by his love ; and our 
lives have been shaped by the teachings and example 
of the Saviour. Paul speaks of "that which 7nay be 
known of God" (Rom. 1:19), implying that there 
was something which could not be known. The 
finite can not fully comprehend the infinite. The 
ocean can not be emptied into a teacup. If so, it 
would not be an ocean. The teacup may be filled 
from the ocean, but when filled it can contain no 
more until it is enlarged. And so we may now 



IS THERE A GOD? 15 

know God sufficiently well to believe in him, to love 

him and to serve him, but we must not expect to 

know him in his fullness. In the sweet by and by 

we shall know him as he is, but now we can only 

know him as we are. "When I was a child I 

spake as a child, I understood as a child, I 

thought as a child; but when I became a man I put 

away childish things. Now we see through a glass 

darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, 

but then shall I know even as also I am known" 

(1 Cor. 13:11, 12). 

a. Argument from With- 

° ° " OUT. Every effect must not only 

swer •' , -' 

have a cause, but it must have an 
adequate cause. This is an axiom. The simple 
statement carries conviction to all. A caravan was 
crossing a desert. An early riser reported that a 
camel had been walking about the tent during the 
night. He was asked how he knew it, and he 
pointed to the tracks in the sand, saying that nothing 
but a camel made such tracks. And when we look 
about us, we see the tracks of Jehovah. We see 
them in the hills and mountains; in the valleys and 
plains ; in the rivers and oceans ; in the flowers and 
trees; in the birds and fishes; in the sun, moon and 
stars; in the covenant of the day and night; in the 
coming and going of the seasons ; and, most of all, 
in man himself. With all his splendid achievements 
— and they are splendid — ^man has not been able to 
make things like these. His mountains are mole- 
hills ; his rivers are small canals ; his oceans are toy 
lakes; his flowers are without life or fragrance, and 



16 HOW TO BE SAVED 

his lights are flickering tapers. Napoleon, not only 
the greatest soldier of his age, but also one of the 
world's wisest philosophers, with some of his offi- 
cers, was on his way to Egypt. The night was 
clear, the sea was calm, and the sky above the ship 
was studded with stars. The officers were engaged 
in an animated religious discussion, and when it 
was about to close they seemed to have proven to 
their own satisfaction that there was no God. Their 
hero all the while was apparently absorbed in other 
things, but it was only in appearance. He had heard 
the entire discussion, and had noted their conclusion, 
for, just as it closed, he said to them, "All that is 
very well, gentlemen;" and, pointing to the myriads 
of stars blazing in glory above them, he asked, "but 
who made these?" Echo answers, "Who?" They 
are the tracks of Jehovah. "The heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament showeth the 
work of his hands" (Ps. 19:1). 

Design, like the argument from cause and effect, 
is old, simple and sound. It can never be overturned. 
We might as well expect to see the rocks of Gibral- 
tar hurled into the sea as to look for a successful 
refutation of this great argument. An intelligent 
man for the first time examines an ordinary watch, 
with its complicated and intricate machinery. He 
notes its levers and springs, its wheels and cogs, its 
strong case and clear face, its hour, minute and sec- 
ond hands, and he sees how accurately it marks the 
progress of time. What must be his conclusion? 
Please note that I do not ask what it may he, but 
what it must he. There can be but one : This watch 



IS THERE A GOD? 17 

had a designer; it could not have come by chance. 
Dr. Franklin once silenced a skeptic on this wise. 
The skeptic argued that the world did not imply a 
designer, but that it was the result of chance. One 
morning when this skeptical friend called, Franklin 
showed him a small globe. He had never seen one 
before, and asked what it was, and who made it. 
Franklin told him that it was a picture of the earth, 
but no one made it; it just happened to be in that 
shape ; it was a freak of chance. His friend saw 
the point, and his skepticism vanished. And I would 
ask, Which is the easier — to make the globe, or to 
make its picture? 

If you should visit a new country and find 
palaces, gardens, streets, railways, steamships, and 
all things necessary for the comfort of man, could 
you fail to believe that these things were the result 
of design? With the alphabet in a sack, would you 
expect to shake it up and pour it on paper and get a 
poem? With the colors thrown carelessly on the 
canvas, would you expect a picture? Is it not as 
reasonable to believe that the palaces of the world 
came by chance as that this splendid earthly home 
of ours so came? If even a little poem must have 
an intelligent author, how can we believe the great 
volume of nature has none? Why not a painting 
by chance as well as this marvelous picture gallery 
of the universe? Is it easier to make a man than 
to make his picture? 

If you should see a ship making annual voyages 
to some distant port, and returning at a regular time, 
laden with food and clothing for the people of an 



18 HOW TO BE SAVED 

isolated island, and never deviating a mile from her 
course, and never an hour late, would it be possible 
to believe it the result of chance? Although you 
never saw them, still you would know she had a 
captain, a pilot, a chart and compass, who directed 
her on her missions of mercy. Let us think of our 
world as a great ship sweeping round the sun, and 
returning laden with all that man needs, and never 
out of her course the fraction of an inch, or a single 
second late. It must be that a wise and loving 
Father is at the helm. Reason as well as revelation 
can accept no other conclusion. 

Joseph Cook finds in nature a beautiful illustra- 
tion of this thought. He says that almost impercep- 
tible creatures are building, in the Indian Ocean, a 
vessel known as ''Neptune's Cup." It is sometimes 
six feet high, and half as broad. These little crea- 
tures have no consultation with each other. Each 
works in a separate cell, cut off from the other, like 
prisoners in a penitentiary. They build the stem to 
the proper height, and then begin to widen. Every- 
thing is proportioned according to a perfect plan. 
Is the plan theirs? or does it proceed from a power 
above them and act through them ? So the bioplasts, 
isolated from each other in the living tissues which 
they produce, build the rose and violet and all 
flowers ; the pomegranate, cedar, oak and all trees ; 
the eagle, canary and all birds ; the lion, leopard and 
all animals ; the bone, muscle and all men ; and so 
from the cup he drank the glad wine of design. 

b. Argument from Within. The heavens and 
the earth, with all creation, proclaim the presence 



IS THERE A GOD? 19 

and power of God. This is wonderful testimony, 
and constitutes a foundation on which the soundest 
reason and profoundest philosophy may rear the 
Temple of Hope. But it is not all, nor is it the best. 
God would have his children without excuse in this 
matter of faith, and hence he makes the voice within 
corroborate that from without, and thus the basis 
of the religious life is made doubly sure. 

God makes no half hinges. The desire on the 
part of man for bread, water, light and sound pre- 
supposes his capacity for, and his need of, these 
things, just as the fin of the fish implies a fluid in 
which to swim, and the wing of the bird an atmos- 
phere in which to fly. The Being who created the 
bird and fish also created these elements, and with- 
out them they could not exist. The Creator of man 
so constituted him that he must have bread and 
water, or he will die; and he must have light and 
sound in order to attain the highest physical life. 
These things are part and parcel of his fleshly life, 
and in his normal condition they are never absent. 
All men, believers and unbelievers alike, agree here. 
And they agree, further, that these wants are not 
the result of teaching or development, but are a part 
of his nature. 

Can we find a parallel of this in his spiritual 
nature? If so, then it follows with the force of a 
demonstration that there is a God. Man has been 
called a "religious animal." He has been charac- 
terized as "hopelessly so"; i. e., he is not only relig- 
ious by nature, but his religious instincts can not be 
destroyed. He has never been discovered without 



20 HOW TO BE SAVED 

some form of religion. However fallen and de- 
graded, there is something within which reaches 
after God; and a piteous voice that cries to the 
unseen for help. A few times he has been found so 
low that at first it was thought he had no spiritual 
aspirations. But, on closer examination, this was 
discovered to be an error. It is as easy to find him 
without speech as without religion. It is a part of 
his very being, and his soul can no more exist with- 
out it than his body can live without bread and water. 
William Shakespeare, the world's great poet, it is 
supposed knew something of human nature; and 
here is what he says on this point: 

"The dread of something after death, 
That undiscovered country 
From whose bourne no traveler returns, 
Puzzles the will. . . . 
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." 

Put emphasis on "thus," and you get the poet's 
point. Looking forward to a place of punishment 
beyond the veil makes cowards of us all. Not simply 
such as are under the influence of Christianity, but 
also the ancient Greek, Roman and pagan. This 
dread is a part of our nature, and is as natural as 
the song in the moment of joy, and the groan in the 
moment of sorrow. It is organic and ineradicable. 
And this is not simply the teaching of Shakespeare, 
but is the voice of the great students of human 
nature since time began. And it is also the voice 
of Paul. "When the Gentiles, which have not the 
law, do by nature the things contained in the law, 
these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves ; 



IS THERE A GOD? 21 

which show the work of the law written in their 
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and 
their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excus- 
ing one another" (Rom. 2:14, 15). Bishop Butler 
says: "Conscience without being consulted, always 
naturally, and of course, unless forcibly stopped, 
goes forward to anticipate a sentence higher than 
its own, and which shall hereafter second and con- 
firm its decisions." It is this which is so large an 
element in our own desire for God, and it must be 
accounted for. A volcanic peak suddenly rises a 
thousand feet above the water in midocean. What 
is its basis? No sane man would say that it rested 
on the waves. There must be something solid 
beneath it. But such a towering peak would not be 
more prominent than this instinctive propensity of 
man to worship. On what does it rest? It is deep- 
seated, and refuses to be removed. He may be in- 
duced to abandon an old religion and espouse a new 
one, but he must have religion. If he loses knowl- 
edge of the true God, he will adopt a false one. 
There is no pinnacle in the whole range of human 
nature which stands out more clearly than this ; and 
therefore it must rest on the same basis which sup- 
ports human nature. 

A student was annoyed by the singing of a can- 
ary. Some one suggested that it was a bird in 
another cage which made it sing, and he moved it. 
But the song continued. It was not the presence of 
its companion which made it sing, but a something 
within, placed there by its Maker. Its song was a 
part of its life — as much so as shining is a part of 



22 HOW TO BE SAVED 

the life of the sun, and as exhaling fragrance is a 
part of the life of the rose; and so, whether alone 
or with its companion, in shine or shade, in winter 
and in summer, always and everywhere the canary 
sings. So the heart sings to God, not because of the 
absence or presence of friends or foes, or because 
of any outside influence, but because of its innate 
yearnings. Beecher says: "The ocean is the same, 
whatever craft sail up and down upon it; whether 
they be pleasure-boats, brigs, or merchant-ships, 
pirates or men-of-war; so, whatever religious navi- 
gators may be going up and down the sea of life, 
its depths and shores and distant haven remain the 
same. The stars never change for astrologers or 
astronomers. They roll calmly above storms and 
above opinions. So man's nature does not vary 
for circumstances or conflicting views, but still 
wants God above, and fellow-man below." 

It is as impossible for us to get away from God 
as it was when David wrote: "Whither shall I go 
from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art 
there: if I make my bed in the grave, behold, thou 
art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there 
shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall 
hold me. If I say. Surely the darkness shall cover 
me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, 
the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night 
shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are 
both alike to thee'' (Ps. 139:7-12). He follows us 
as the shadow follows the substance. This thought 



IS THERE A GOD? 23 

v.as powerfully impressed on me the day I first saw 
Pike's Peak, the great monarch of the Rockies, 
standing like a sentinel from the skies, guarding that 
world of mountains. I needed no one to point it 
out to me. The moment my eyes rested on it, I 
exclaimed, "There's Pike's Peak !" And for almost a 
hundred miles it was seldom out of view, and 
seemed to keep alongside of our train, as if it, toO; 
was moving. It looked as if we would never get 
away from it. And so the thought of God, towering 
high above all others, follows us through every 
experience in life. It fills the mind of the little child 
with awe, and trembles in reverence on the lips of 
old age. It throbs in the heart of youth as he nears 
manhood, and becomes his inspiration in the stern 
battles of life. It is a benediction at the marriage 
altar, and the one solace and stay at the open grave. 
It goes side by side with the poor wretch on the 
downward way to ruin, and on the pathway of the 
just it shines more and more unto the perfect day. 
The murderer can not drive it from his narrow cell, 
and all bad men and demons combined can not rob 
the dying martyr of its holy presence. And during 
eternity it will still soothe the soul. 

Tell man that there is no God, and after a moment 
of terrible suspense he will look you in the face and 
declare that your teaching is inhuman; that if this 
life is not to be followed by another and better life; 
that if hopes are only born to be blighted; if ties 
are only made to be sundered; if heart yearnings 
are only roused to be crushed ; if man is only 
created to be destroyed — then God must be either 



24 HOW TO BE SAVED 

weak or wicked. He will quote you Browning's 
forceful lines: 

"Truly there needs another life to come ! 
If this be all, 

And another life await us not, for one, 
I say 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, 
A wretched failure. I for one protest 
Against, and I hurl it back with scorn." 

Is there a God? Yes; or the voice of Nature is 
false, and the deepest instincts of the heart are mis- 
leading. 

Review. 

1. Define "principle." 

2. What is the first question in the heart of a 
truth-seeker ? 

3. May we expect perfect answers? 

4. Give the first argument. 

5. Give the second argument. 

6. Give the Dr. Franklin incident. 

7. Give the illustrations of the poem, picture 
and watch. 

8. Tell us of "Neptune's Cup." 

9. Give the argument from "within." 
10. Is worship natural to man? 



II. 

GOD SPEAKING TO HIS 
CHILDREN 



25 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER II. 

1. Unity. 

a. The People from Whom It Came. 

b. The Number of Writers. 

c. Character of Writers. 

d. Length of Time They Were Writing. 

e. Changes During This Time. 

2. Vitality. 

a. Some are Commonplace. 

b. Some are Displaced by Better Books. 

c. Some are False. 

3. Utility. 

a. Geographical. 

b. Law. 

c. Politics. 

d. Liter^^ture. 

e. Painting. 
/. Sculpture. 
g. Music. 

h. Woman. i 

4. Adaptation. 

5. Indestructibility. 

6. Progressiveness. 

7. Revelations. 



ae 



11. 

God Speaking to His Children. 

If there is a God, and if that God, as the Chris- 
tian beUeves, is our Father, then we may be sure he 
has spoken to his children; for what earthly parent, 
with a child away from home, would not, if he could, 
communicate with him? Hence our second study: 
Did the Bible come from God? 

In the discussion of this large question both our 
purpose and space forbid the discussion of details. 
Even the much-discussed question of inspiration 
must be passed by with a sentence, for we have in 
mind the young soul in search of the truth, and not 
the learned theologian, or the average Christian with 
years of experience and knowledge. Lowth, speak- 
ing on this subject, says: "Inspiration may be re- 
garded, not as suppressing or extinguishing for a 
time the faculties of the human mind, but of purify- 
ing and strengthening and elevating them above 
what they would otherwise reach." It is like the 
sun shining through colored glass. The colors in the 
glass are not destroyed, but rather heightened and 
brightened. And so the personality of the Bible 
writers is preserved and perpetuated. Paul, for 
example, is as distinctly himself when inspired by 
God, as when he writes of his own accord. 

Nature bears the marks of divine origin. Man 
never made the heavens or the earth. As well might 

2T 



28 HOW TO BE SAVED 

we say that the great bridges which span our rivers 
and the ships which ride the seas are the works of 
ten-year-old boys. And so the Bible bears marks of 
its divine origin. What are some of them? 

The Bible is one book ; not be- 

I. Its Unity ^ -^ • u j • • i 

cause it IS bound m a smgle 

voulme, but because of the plan and purpose mani- 
fest on every page. "Paradise Lost" and "The 
Course of Time" are not more distinct unities. 
Barnes is right in claiming that it has "a beginning, 
a middle and an end — a beginning, a middle and an 
end more complete, extending through more years, 
and embracing a greater variety of characters and 
events, than any other volume in the world — its 
beginning the beginning of creation; its middle the 
Incarnation and the Atonement; its end the consum- 
mation of the world's affairs." 

That we may the better appreciate this high and 
true claim, let us remember: 

a. The People from Whom It Came. The 
Tews had no scientific or literary fame. They were 
regarded as narrow and bigoted, with no ambition 
in these directions. The Chaldeans and Egyptians 
had their observatories through which they were 
familiar with the heavens, and splendid temples dedi- 
cated to literature, science and religion. Had the 
Bible come from these people, it would not have 
been so strange. But it came from a people just the 
reverse; a people as incapable of producing such a 
book, as Alaska is of producing the California 
orange. And yet Milton (and who knows better?) 
says: "No songs are comparable to the songs of 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 29 

Zion ; no orations are equal to those of the prophets ; 
and no poHtics are Hke those which the Scriptures 
teach." 

b. The Number of the Writers. The Bible of 
the Chinese has but one author — Confucius ; and the 
Koran is from the pen of Mohammed. But the 
Bible has about forty authors. 

c. Character of These Writers. Some of 
them were men of renown, and others were fisher- 
men and shepherds. Some were men of culture, 
and others were "unlearned and ignorant." Some 
of them, by travel, had come in touch with the wis- 
dom of the world, but most of them were never 
beyond the narrow limits of their native land. 
Travel, a vital factor in education, was denied them. 

d. The Length of Time They Were Writing. 
The Bible was not written in a single year, or dur- 
ing a period of several years, but more than fifteen 
hundred years swept by between its beginning and 
its close. 

e. The Changes Gk)iNG on in the World Dur- 
ing This Time. These were many and vast. The 
whole earth was feverish and restive like a volcano ; 
it heaved and sighed and groaned like an ocean in a 
storm. Great conquerors founded empires which 
swayed the world for a moment, and then passed 
away; and discoveries followed each other in rapid 
succession in the scientific world; there was as little 
rest among the scholars as among the soldiers ; and 
vast revolutions of many kinds were shaking the 
earth to her center. But, despite all this, the Bible 
writers, like men in a cave, sheltered from the storm 



50 HOW TO BE SAVED 

raging about them, sbwly and surely pushed their 
work to completion. 

How, under these circumstances, are we to 
aocx)unt for the perfect unity of the Bible? It came 
from a people who had never produced anj-thing of 
the kind; it is the joint work of more than forty 
writers differing greatly from each other and 
without conference with each other, or knowl- 
edge of the fact that they were engaged in writing 
a single book : their work covered a period of more 
than fifteen hundred years of the most turbulent his- 
tory of the world. (\Miat man has lived long 
enough to supervise the writing of a book during so 
long a time?) And yet the kejTiote sounded at first 
was the ke^^lOte to the last. "It is susceptible of 
easy proof," says Banies, "that one part is the com- 
pletion or complement of the other, as the two parts 
of a tally, or as complementary colors; not as the 
Tews would have done it, but as it was intended to 
be. There is a scheme commenced. There is an 
anticipation. There is progress. There is a comple- 
tion in the Messiah. There is the unfolding of a 
plan through many centuries : one writer in one age 
stating one tiling, and another in another, as if in 
one age an artist should have fashioned an arm, 
and another a leg, and one a hand and another 
a foot ; one the nose, another the lips, another 
the chin; one the fonii and size of the head, 
and another the body; and all at last should have 
been put together in the form of Minerva or 
Apollo." Such a book is as different from all other 
books as the sun is different from a taper, and, like 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 31 

the sun, it bears on its shining face the proof of its 

divine origin. 

Books, like men, are born, 
2. Its Vitality jj^^ ^j^^.^ j.^^j^ ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^^ ^j.^ 

forgotten. This results from various causes: 

a. They are Commonplace. They lack the 
merit that perpetuates. They have a few friends 
and a local reputation, but the great, wide world 
neither knows of them nor cares for them. It is 
appalling to see this large and ever-increasing list; 
it is enough to make an author's pen fall from his 
fingers. It is like the advance of an army, which 
can be traced by the refuse in its wake. Here is 
an old wagon; there is a disabled piece of artil- 
lery; and yonder an old horse, no longer able to 
keep his place in the ranks. And so there are 
many books which can not keep up with the pro- 
cession of this ongoing world. Their only friend 
is the antiquarian. We may preserve them be- 
cause they are rare. But this is a doubtful honor, 
for if they had been valuable they would not have 
been rare. 

b. They Have Been Displaced by Better 
Books. If all of this class were piled together, 
they would make a small mountain. They were 
once useful, but better books have taken their place, 
and they are now fit companions of the old-time 
engine and reaper. 

c. They are False. The works of Ptolemy, 
with all other books founded on the Ptolemaic sys- 
tem of astronomy, are illustrations of this class. 
Though ingenious and profound, they passed away 



32 HOW TO BE SAVED 

when the Copernican theory was established; and 
their chief value to-day is that they mark the mighty 
progress of science. 

But the Bible belongs to none of these classes. 
It is not found in the hands of the antiquarian, hon- 
ored solely because of its quaintness and its age; 
better books are not pushing it aside and it is not 
being discarded because of its errors ; but it holds 
its high place in the vanguard of the world. It is 
translated into more languages than any other book; 
better presses are printing it ; more money and skill 
are spent on its embellishment; it finds a welcome 
in more and better homes ; and its influence is now 
greater than ever before. It has withstood alike its 
furious foes and its false friends ; and, like its 
Author, it remains the same "yesterday, to-day and 
for ever," needing no revision and adaptation, as 
does our Constitution. A few years ago, when a 
new translation of the New Testament reached New 
York, a Chicago daily, rather than wait a few hours 
for the railroad train to bring it, had it flashed over 
the wires, and gave it in full in a single issue to its 
readers. Does that look like it had lost vitality? It 
throbs with life to-day as it has always done, and it 
thrills with life everything that receives it. It is as 
unlike any other book as the mountain is like a mole- 
hill, and it shows, as does the mountain, that Jehovah 
is its Author. 

Here is, perhaps, its highest 

proof of heavenly origin. That 

which always ennobles, elevates and purifies must be 

of God. In my old Virginia home the land is thin 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 33 

and much fertilizer is used, each plant of tobacco 
receiving a tablespoonful of the guano. It some- 
times happens that a small part of a field is neg- 
lected because the supply of fertilizer is exhausted. 
In such a case you can tell by the feebleness of the 
plant every one so neglected. And when we look 
over the world we can discover by the rich foliage 
and fruit just where the fertilizing influence of the 
old Book has gone. "Where there is no vision, the 
people perish : but he that keepeth the law, happy is 
he" (Prov. 29:18). 

There are those who claim that human culture, 
philosophy, science, art, etc., are better for man than 
the Bible. If so, the map of the world should show 
it. Egypt was once the seat of the world's best 
learning, but her scholars as well as her serfs bowed 
in worship to the brute. Greece in her palmiest days, 
when reason and philosophy reigned supreme, was 
gross and sensual in her devotions. And when 
Corinth was famous for beauty and elegance, Venus, 
the very personification of lust, was her goddess. 
At best these powers could only elevate the few, and 
these they failed to purify. They could build the 
pyramids and the Coliseum, but they could not build 
up the morals of the people. One emperor slew 
twenty thousand men in celebrating a Roman holi- 
day. 

a. Geographical. Now see the Bible tested. 
Look upon the lands where it has been open to the 
masses, and you see the noblest men, the purest 
women, the largest liberty and the best government. 
Behold England, Scotland and America. Then fol- 



34 HOW TO BE SAVED 

low the missionary in Asia, Africa and the Sand- 
wich Islands, and see vice changed to virtue ; savages 
to saints ; barbarism to civilization ; and woman, the 
degraded beast of burden, loved and honored as 
mother, wife, sister and daughter. Some years since 
a ship was wrecked off one of the Fiji Islands. The 
crew expected to be devoured by cannibals. But 
when two of them discovered a church, they 
shouted, "All right ; here is a church ; no fear now !" 

b. Law. And in its influence it touches all parts 
of life. In the realm of law, reason perhaps reaches 
its highest development, and yet the Bible seems a 
fixture there. A skeptical lawyer, impressed with 
the accuracy, profundity and marvelous comprehen- 
siveness of the Ten Commandments, said: "I have 
read history. The Egyptians and the adjacent 
nations were idolaters ; so were the Greeks and 
Romans ; and the wisest and best Greeks and Romans 
never gave a code like this. Where did Moses get 
this law which surpasses the wisdom and philosophy 
of the most enlightened ages ?" And soon he became 
a Christian. And along with this sound reasoner 
are found Blackstone, Marshall, Story and Kent. 

c. Politics. It also blesses in the political realm. 
Even Voltaire said, "Not to believe in any God 
would be an error incompatible with wise govern- 
ment." An African prince sent an ambassador to 
Queen Victoria, asking the secret of England's 
superiority among the nations. The Queen, handing 
the ambassador a copy of the Bible, said, "Go tell 
your prince that this is the secret of England's polit- 
ical greatness." And Japan was unknown as a world 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 35 

power until the Book was opened in her midst. The 
nation that receives it feels the flush of health and 
the vigor of life in the body politic. Great statesmen 
like Burke and Pitt and Webster might be called as 
witnesses here. Let us hear Webster: "If we abide 
by the principles taught in the Bible, our country 
will go on prospering and to prosper, but if we and 
our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, 
no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may over- 
whelm us, and bury our glory in obscurity." 

d. Literature. And what is true in law and 
political science is equally true in learning and liter- 
ature. Whence the origin of the great schools of 
the civilized world, such as Prague, Heidelberg, 
Leipzig, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale? 

Now, is it strange that in this realm it makes and 
moulds the best, for when mind meets mind, both are 
sharpened ; and when the mind of man comes in con- 
tact with the mind of God, every human faculty is 
aroused to the utmost. When blind Bunyan was 
locked up for twelve years in Bedford jail, his 
library consisted of the Bible and Fox's "Book of 
Martyrs," and he produced "Pilgrim's Progress," the 
most remarkable book of its kind in the world. And 
Shakespeare, that wonderful prodigy, who, like the 
sun, belongs to all men, would not have been Shake- 
speare but for the Bible. His works contain more 
than five hundred Bible quotations and Bible senti- 
ments. He quotes from or refers to fifty-four of its 
sixty-six books ; and in every one of his thirty-seven 
plays there are Scriptural references. These two 
masterpieces in literature, like most of the best 



36 HOW TO BE SAVED 

things in it, are saturated with the word of God. 

e. Painting. And what would the world of 
painting be without the Bible? There would be no 
Raphael's ''Transfiguration" ; no Angelo's "Last 
Judgment"; no Murillo's ''Moses Striking the 
Rock" ; no Rubens' "Descent from the Cross," and 
no Da Vinci's "Last Supper." 

/. Sculpture. In sculpture, a sister to the 
realm of painting, the loss would be equally great. 
We would miss Angelo's "Moses" ; Canova's "Pen- 
itent Magdalene," and Thorwaldsen's "Christ and 
the Apostles." 

g. Music. Without this Book the world of music 
would be poor indeed. We would not have Handel's 
"Sampson," "Saul" and "Messiah"; nor Haydn's 
"Creation"; nor Beethoven's "Mount of Olives"; 
nor Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and "Paul." 

h. Woman. And what v/ould woman be without 
this blessed Book? Before its gracious beams shone 
upon her way, she was the toy or plaything of man, 
or a beast of burden yoked with the oxen of the field. 
Even in the classic glory of Greece the most common 
symbol on her tomb was a muzzle, implying that she 
should not speak; or a pair of reins, indicating that 
she should be driven by her husband. But, with its 
aid, she has risen to the high, holy and tender place 
of mother, wife, sister and daughter. 

But what need to say more ? What it has done in 
these spheres, it has done in all spheres. It blesses 
all ranks and conditions — the rich and the poor, the 
weak and the strong, the wise and the ignorant, the 
master and the slave, the prince and the peasant. 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 37 

And its blessings are not confined to the spiritual. 

It builds schoolhouses, colleges and universities, as 

we have already seen ; it builds hospitals, almshouses 

and orphanages ; it builds railroads, telegraphs and 

steamships. In a word, it gives to us our best 

civiHzation, and, as the benediction of Heaven, it 

ever hovers over the home of man. 

In proof of all this let us hear a single famous 

witness, and one whose bias was against the Book — 

Charles Darwin. While on a scientific voyage he 

touched at Terre del Fuego. He was horrified at the 

degradation of the inhabitants, and doubted whether 

they belonged to the human race. Science noted the 

awful fact, but made no effort to change it; but the 

church, heaving the sad news, rushed to the rescue. 

Two noble fellows led the way, and were murdered 

by the bloodthirsty savages. But again and again 

the ranks of the fallen were refilled, until the victory 

of the Cross was won. And, let it be said in honor 

of Mr. Darwin, when he saw what the Bible had 

done for them, he became a regular contributor to 

the South American Missionary Society. 

There are to-day one billion 
4, Its Adaptation r 1 j 1 ^1 1 1 

live hundred thousand people on 

the earth, and they are as varied as the leaves of the 

forest or the grasses of the field — the white man, the 

black man, the yellow man, the brown man — and yet 

this Book, when its teachings are heard and heeded, 

meets all the spiritual wants of this vast throng. No 

man can deny the race distinctions among them, for 

the> are as clear as the distinctions between the lion, 

the horse and the ox. Yet it is the glory of the 



38 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Book that it has a voice for every race, and a help- 
ing hand for every man. At a meeting in Glasgow 
this question was being discussed, when one speaker 
argued that some races, Hke the Bushman, were so 
degraded as to be beyond the reach of the Bible. A 
stranger rose and said: "I don't pretend to be able 
to dispute with the learned gentleman, but I will 
tell what I know, for I am a Bushman, one of the 
same little fellows he claims are incapable of moral 
development One of them was educated and con- 
verted by a missionary. One night an English 
cavalry officer was lost. Filled with despair, he saw 
a light in the distance. The Bushman, hearing the 
clatter of the horse's feet, stood in the door of his 
humble home, and, at the approach of the lost sol- 
dier, he bowed low, and asked him to come in. 
When supper was over and bedtime came, he told 
the stranger that it was the custom in that home to 
read the Bible and pray before going to sleep, and 
he requested the Englishman to lead in that service. 
But he said with shamefacedness that he had never 
learned to pray. The Bushman himself then read 
and prayed. In the light of this example I think it 
clear that even this stunted, jabbering, ape-like race 
is capable of receiving and living the truth of God.*' 

No book ever had such firm 

5. Its Indestructi- friends and such furious foes as 
bility 

the Bible. The war waged against 

it has been bitter, long and relentless ; but, like the 

burning bush, it refuses to be consumed. Critics in 

all ages, learned and strong, have shown to their own 

satisfaction that it was a myth or a fable, unworthy 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 39 

of God, and unfit for man. A hundred years ago 
it was outlawed in France, and the awful Reign of 
Terror began. The Bible was burned, God wa* 
dethroned, the Lord's Day was erased from the stat- 
ute-books, and the streets of Paris ran with blood. 
It looked like all was lost. Voltaire, the leader, bold 
and blatant, said: "I am going through the forests 
of your Christian doctrines, and will girdle every 
tree, so that presently not a sapling shall be left 
you." (Little did he think that the very house used 
by him in which to declare his purpose and print 
his prophecy would soon become a depository for 
the Bible and other religious literature.) Unbelief, 
like a great dark cloud, seemed to be settling down 
over Europe, and smothering out the last ray of 
light. Nor was it confined to Europe. It swept 
across the Atlantic and invaded America. Tom 
Paine pubHshed his "Age of Reason," and the 
effect was frightful. He showed the manuscript to 
Benjamin Franklin, who urged him not to "unloose 
this tiger," saying: "If our people are only what 
they are with the Bible, what would they be without 
it?" But he did unloose it, and for a time it seemed 
that Paine's book, and not God's, was to rule in our 
beloved land. 

And the fight is still on, but the method of war- 
fare is changed. The attack from without has given 
place to one from within. The great leaders of open 
infidelity are gone. Bradlaugh in Europe and Inger- 
soll in America closed the battle on that line. But 
the struggle continues. The leaders are often robed 
in the garbs of Christian teachers, preachers, authors 



40 HOW TO BE SAVED 

and editors. Like the enemies of Troy who came 
into the city in the wooden horse, they are striving 
to open the gates from within. 

But what is the result? The old Book stands. 
It emerges from the furnace of every foe, though 
heated seven times hot, without the smell of fire on 
its garments, or the loss of a single vital doctrine. 
It stands like Gibraltar, with the wreck of manj 
hostile fleets floating at its base. The assaults from 
the open foe have not breached its walls, nor have 
its bolts been drawn by treachery within. 

The coming and going of the 
6. Its Progres- nations is the drama of all dramas. 

S1V6I16SS 

The Babylonian, Egyptian, Per- 
sian and other great powers have lived their little 
day and died. Great discoveries and wonderful 
inventions have followed each other in rapid suc- 
cession. Scientific and philosophical theories have 
changed and rechanged, and laws have been enacted 
and remodeled so as to meet the wants of a grovring 
world. But the Bible has kept pace with every for- 
ward movement, and is still as perfectly adapted to 
the wants of the world as it was when it first came 
from the hand of God. Progress is fatal to a false- 
hood, hut to the truth it is its best tonic. 

We outgrow many things — our text-books, our 
schools, our habits, our pleasures; but no one can 
outgrow the Bible. We may grow away from it, 
but none have outgrown it. We find room within 
its ample scope for continuous growth in everything 
that is good. And when we turn from it we are 
dwarfed. 



GOD SPEAKING TO HIS CHILDREN 41 

Its practical precepts are the 
7. Its Revelations ^^^^ -^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ principles 

are without a flaw. Its influence is always good. 
But, passing on beyond the questions of daily life 
and duty, it deals with problems untouched by other 
books. It tells us of the origin and destiny of man. 
It solves the soul's greatest questions. Other books 
leave man at the grave without hope, and his going 
from the earth is a leap in the dark. But this Book 
tells the Christian that death is a transition from the 
lower to the higher, from the imperfect to the per- 
fect. The grave is the robing-room in which the 
soul is dressed for an audience with the Lord of 
lords and the King of kings. 

Whence, then, this wonderful Book? How came 
it with a unity as perfect as that of the human body? 
How came it with a vitality which ignores the 
passage of time, and though old in years, like its 
Lord, still retains the dew of its youth? How came 
it with the magic power that blesses everything it 
touches? How came it to be perfectly adapted to' 
all men in all places and in every condition? Why 
is it that it refuses to be destroyed, and defies the 
might and malice of every foe? Why is it that it 
moves in the vanguard of a growing world and con- 
stantly taunts its enemies by saying: "Supplement 
me; supersede me; supplant me, if you can!" 
Whence its power to take away the sting of death, 
to light up the dark vault of the grave, to unbolt 
the gates of the New Jerusalem and usher the soul 
into the presence of its Maker and Redeemer? Well 
has Alfred M. Haggard said: "I know that no man 



42 HOW TO BE SAVED 

made the roses. I know that no man painted the 
sunset on the evening skies. In the same way I 
know that no man, nor set of men, unaided, have 
produced the Bible. It points to God as its Author 
as do the flowers and the sunset skies." 

Columbus never explored South America, but 
only touched a few places on the northern coast, and 
yet he unhesitatingly pronounced it a continent. As 
he gazed on the vast volume of fresh water rushing 
through the wide-mouthed Orinoco into the sea, he 
Said: "That stream, comrades, never came from an 
island; be sure it gathered its vast waters from a 
continent." And when we contemplate the influences 
flowing from this matchless Book, we instinctively 
exclaim: "It came not from man, but from man's 
Maker!" 

Review. 

1. Is revelation reasonable? 

2. What of the unity of the Bible? 

3. What of the vitality of the Bible? 

4. What of the utility of the Bible? 

5. What of the adaptation of the Bible? 

6. What of the indestructibility of the Bible? 

7. What of the progressiveness of the Bible? 

8. Give the quotation from Haggard. 

9. Give the illustration by Columbus. 



{ 



III. 

HOW TO STUDY THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 



48 



i 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER III. 

1. First Want. 

a. Baptism of Jesus. 

b. Calming the Storm. 

c. Feeding the Multitude. 

d. Raising of Lazarus. 

2. Second Want. 

a. The Unbeliever. 

b. The Believer. 

c. The Penitent Believer. 

d. The Backslider. 

3. Third Want. 

4. Fourth Want. 



44 



i 



III. 

How TO Study the New Testament. 

The whole Bible is from God, and therefore it 
should be faithfully studied by his children. But 
there are special reasons why we should study the 
New Testament. It is the Father's latest and fullest 
revelation, including the Gentile as well as the Jew, 
and giving us, in fact, what the Old Testament 
gives in picture and in promise. It is the constitution 
of the new covenant under which we live, and a 
full knowledge of this covenant can not be had 
except through the New Testam.ent. Much injury 
has resulted from the want of a clean-cut distinction 
between the Old and New Testaments. Many relig- 
ious teachers treat the two volumes as if they were 
identical in their teachings. They are as apt to send 
a penitent sinner to the Psalms of David or the 
wailings of Jeremiah for instruction as to how to 
be saved, as to the Book of Acts. And when we 
come to the New Testament we often find similar 
confusion. They seem to think that the different 
parts of the book just happened to get into their 
present places ; that Matthew might as well have 
been the last book as the first and that Revelation 
was not necessarily the last section of the volume. 
The idea, in many cases, seems to be that these dif- 
ferent books of the New Testament found their 
several places much as different tracts might find 

45 



46 HOW TO BE SAVED 

theirs, when bound together by a publisher without 
reference to their contents. But such a conception 
is as far from the truth as the east is from the west. 
This book is as systematic in its arrangement as any 
text-book. Matthew is first because it ought to be 
first, and Revelation is last because it ought to be 
last, and so of every other book. 

Man, spiritually, is a fourfold creature, and the 
book is fourfold in its divisions, each division meet- 
ing the spiritual wants in the order of their occur- 
rence. These divisions have each one great fun- 
damental purpose which gives character to them. It 
is true they contain many other important things, 
but these are subordinate. The Mississippi River, 
in its long journey, runs toward every point of the 
compass; therefore, it might be truthfully said that 
it flows east, west, north and south; and yet, when 
speaking in general, it is correct to say that it flows 
southward because this is its main course. 

The first spiritual want of one 
studying Christianity relates to 
Christ. An educated Hindoo, with a clear head and 
good heart, having heard of the Christian religion, 
lands in New York for the purpose of investigating 
it. The first Sunday morning finds him listening to 
a Presbyterian preacher. When he analyzes the ser- 
mon he finds that its central thought is that of a 
great person called by various names : Christ, Jesus, 
Saviour, Lord, etc. At night he hears a Methodist 
preacher, whose sermon in many respects is different 
from the other, but both are identical so far as this 
central thought is concerned. He continues to hear 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 47 

eminent men for months, and they differ in a thou- 
sand minor details, but are a unit concerning the 
Christ. He is to their theology what the sun is to the 
solar system — its center ; the point around which all 
things else revolve, and from which they receive 
their light and life. He now selects a competent 
teacher, and his studies begin in earnest. 

This teacher, that this first want of his may be 
supplied, directs him in a careful study of the first 
division of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John. He has him witness the baptism 
of Jesus, with the visible dovelike descent of the 
Spirit, and the audible voice from the skies. 

a. Baptism of Jesus. "Then cometh Jesus from 
Galilee to Jordan to be baptized of John. But John 
forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of 
thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answ^ering 
said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it 
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he 
suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, 
went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the 
heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the 
Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting 
upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying. 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" 
(Matt. 3:13-17). 

His pupil is deeply impressed, and asks for fur- 
ther instruction. 

h. Calming the Storm. He is next shown the 
Lord as he hushes the sea into silence. "And the 
same day, when the evening was come, he said unto 
them. Let us pass over unto the other side. And 



48 HOW TO BE SAVED 

when they had sent away the multitude, they took 
him even as he was in the ship. . . . And there arose 
a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into 
the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the 
hinder part of the ship asleep on a pillow; and they 
awoke him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou 
not that we perish? And he arose and rebuked the 
wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the 
wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 
4:35-39). 

The tired Saviour is asleep in the little boat. 
The storm-king arouses the waves and the sea be- 
comes so furious that the disciples, experienced sea- 
men, familiar with such dangers, moved with fear, 
awoke him, saying, "Master, carest thou not that 
we perish?" Arising from his hard bed, filled with 
the majesty and mercy of Jehovah, he waves his 
hand and says, "Peace, be still !" and the wild winds 
cease their roaring, the mad waves crouch at his feet, 
and the sea, calm as an infant's slumber, permits 
the frail vessel to pass on in safety to the shore. 
The teacher asks what he thinks of One whom the 
winds and the waves obey. He answers, "He is 
wonderful ; but let me see more of him." 

c. Feeding the Multitude. They now go to a 
desert place to see him feed the five thousand on five 
loaves and two fishes. "When Jesus heard of it [the 
death of John] he departed thence by ship into a 
desert place apart; and when the people had heard 
thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. 
And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, 
and was moved with compassion toward them, and 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 

he healed their sick. And when it was evening, his 
disciples came to him, saying. This is a desert place, 
and the time is now past ; send the multitude away, 
that they may go into the villages, and buy them- 
selves victuals. But Jesus said unto them, They 
need not depart ; give ye them to eat. And they say 
unto him. We have here but five loaves and two 
fishes. He said. Bring them hither to me. And he 
commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, 
and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and look- 
ing up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave 
the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the 
multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: 
and they took up of the fragments that remained 
twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were 
about five thousand men, besides women and chil- 
dren" (Matt. 14:13-21). 

The young Hindoo witnesses this remarkable 
scene with great astonishment and awe. He sees the 
hungry throng of five thousand men, with probably 
as many more women and children — ten thousand 
in all — seated on the soft grass ; he sees the little 
pittance of food brought to Jesus ; he beholds him 
looking up to God, and hears his strange, sweet voice 
as he blesses it; he then watches him as he gives it 
to the disciples, and they to the multitude; and he 
notices how these starving people devour it. And 
when all are fed, he is astonished to find that more 
food remains that they had in the beginning. 

Again the teacher seeks an opinion, and again 
his pupil expresses wonder, but asks for more evi- 
dence before rendering a verdict. 



50 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Before leaving this miracle, let me say that it 
is one of the greatest the Saviour ever wrought. It 
is easy to deceive the eye, the ear and the touch; 
but not so of the appetite of a hungry man. You 
can not convince him that he has been fed until you 
feed him. If you think you can, try it with the 
hungry schoolboy, as he comes bounding home from 
school. And yet Jesus, with these few loaves and 
fishes, convinced these hungry thousands that they 
had been fed. 

d. Raising of Lazarus. The resurrection of 
Lazarus (John 11:1-46) is next studied. The 
Christ, with the sympathy of a man and the power 
of Gk)d, cries with a loud voice, ''Lazarus, come 
forth!" And the arms of Death are broken, and the 
dead, alive again, is restored to his weeping sisters. 
Doubt now vanishes, and the young man joyfully 
proclaims : "It is enough ! It is enough ! I believe 
in Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of men !" 

Thus the first want of the spiritual nature, "Who 
is Jesus?" is met and supplied by the first division 
of the New Testament — the Gospels. "Many other 
signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, 
which are not written in this book ; but these art 
v/ritten that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God; and believing ye might have life 
through his name" (John 20:30, 31). "Believe me 
that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else 
believe me for the very works' sake" (John 14: 11). 
"Rabbi, v/e believe thou art a teacher come from 
God ; for no man can do these miracles that thou 
doest except God be with him" (John 3:2). 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 

Some years ago this writer made this same argu- 
ment to one who had recently lost twin children — 
Willie and Lillie — and had buried them together in 
the same grave, and had placed at the head of the 
little mound a twin monument in marble bearing the 
names of his lost jewels. This father was very 
near and dear to me by ties of kindred, and I was 
exceedingly anxious to win him to the Christ. When 
the argument was finished, I asked him what he 
thought of it. He answered, "I hardly know what to 
think of it." I urged him to give a definite answer; 
for he had listened to it carefully, and was capable 
of rendering an intelligent decision; but he would 
not, still claiming that his mind was not quite clear 
on the subject. I then asked him to imagine a man 
claiming the power to raise the dead, a power 
which is found only in God, standing by the grave 
of his Tittle children. This man has advertised that 
he is going to call these children back to life; and 
you and your wife, and a large company of your 
neighbors, are standing near him, watching and 
waiting to see the result. The strange man lifts his 
eyes reverently toward God, and thanks him that 
he has always heard him, and then he pleads for 
the sake of those about him that he will hear him 
cnce more. After a pause, when a solemn hush, 
like the silence of the tomb, has settled down over 
all, the stranger, looking toward the grave where 
the bodies of the little twins were resting, cries in 
a clear, strong voice, "Willie and Lillie, come forth!" 
Instantly the grave opens and your children do come 
forth, Willie twining his little arms about your neck, 



52 HOW TO BE SAVED 

and Lillie clasping hers about the neck of her mother. 
''Under these circumstances," I asked, "what would 
you think of this strange and wonderful man?" And 
again he answered that he did not know. But I am 
sure that he did know ; and that he would have fallen 
at his feet and worshiped him as a divine being. 

It is popular in some circles to ignore the miracles 
altogether; to throw them out of court, as unworthy 
of consideration by this cultured age. But, before 
agreeing to this wholesale slaughter of Bible evi- 
dence, let it be remembered that the people among 
whom they were wrought did not deny them. They 
attempted to discount them by ascribing them to 
Beelzebub (Mark 3:22) ; but it was a later age — 
much later — that discarded them altogether. Sup- 
pose a young man, after much research and pro- 
found thought (?), decides that the battle of Get- 
tysburg is a myth; no such conflict ever occurred. 
But when he closes his eloquent address, an old, bat- 
tle-scarred veteran of Pickett's division, who lost 
an arm in that famous charge, says: "Young man, 
that was a fine speech, but it is false ; there was such 
a battle, for it was there I lost my good right arm." 
Whom shall we believe? The man who was on the 
ground when the battle was fought, or the man who 
was born forty years later? 

Let it also be remembered that the greatest 
miracle of all would be that He who is the chief of 
sU miracles should have wrought no miracles. "You 
may as well expect the sun to send forth darkness as 
to expect ordinary v/orks from such an extra- 
ordinary being." 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 

But more important still, let it never be forgot- 
ten that when we give up miracles we give up 
Christianity. If there be no miracles, then there was 
no incarnation, no resurrection, and no ascension, 
and without these there is no Christianity. 

Knowing himself a sinner, 

2. Second Want j i • r 1^.10- 

and havmg found the baviour, 

the second spiritual want voices itself in the ques- 
tion, "What must I do to be saved? Here is salva- 
tion, how can I appropriate it?" His teacher turns 
him to the Book of Acts, the second division of the 
New Testament. Here he finds perhaps a half-mil- 
lion people with this same want in their hearts and 
this same question on their lips ; and he finds that 
all of them heard the gospel, believed it, repented 
cf their sins and were baptized in the name of the 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

This second division of the New Testament, like 
all the divisions of this Book, is rich and varied in 
its teachings ; but clearly its chief purpose is to show 
the man in sin how to be saved. That this is its 
main purpose is evident in the fact that most of the 
space is devoted to this subject. "The greater part 
of the book," says Prof. J. W. McGarvey, "consists 
in detailed accounts of conversions to Christ, and of 
unsuccessful attempts at the same." After sketch- 
ing the many accounts of conversions, and attempted 
conversions, this distinguished Bible teacher, the 
most eminent in the world on the Book of Acts, says : 
"Undoubtedly, then, the writer's chief design was to 
set forth to his readers a multitude of cases of con- 
version under the labors of the apostles and apos- 



54 HOW TO BE SAVED 

tolic men, so that we may know how this work, the 
main work for which Jesus died, and the apostles 
were commissioned, was accompHshed. The cases 
recorded represent all the different grades of human 
society, from idolatrous peasants up to priests, pro- 
consuls and kings. They represent all the degrees 
of intellectual and religious culture; all the common 
occupations of life; and all the countries and lan- 
guages of the then known world, thus showing the 
adaptation of the one system of life and salvation to 
all the inhabitants of the earth." 

Those who are away from God and living in sin 
may be classified as unbelievers, believers, penitent 
believers and backsliders; and each of these classes 
has an example or examples illustrative of his con- 
dition in the Book of Acts, and showing him how to 
be saved from his sin. 

a. The Unbeliever. The case of the Philip- 
pian jailer (16:16-34) illustrates the unbeliever. 
He was in the darkness of heathenism, and had to 
be taught the whole of the plan of salvation : faith 
to change the heart; repentance to change the life 
and baptism to change the state or relationship. 
Faith and baptism are both declared, and repentance 
is clearly implied, in the washing of the stripes of 
Faul and Silas. 

b. The Believer. The story of Pentecost (2 : 1- 
40) illustrates the man who has faith in Christ, but 
has not obeyed him. These people are not told to 
believe, but to repent and be baptized, which would 
complete their obedience, and deliver them from sin. 

c. The Penitent Believer. The case of Saul 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 

of Tarsus (9:1-18 and 22:1-16) illustrates the 
story of one who has both believed and repented, 
and hence his obedience is completed by his bap- 
tism. 

d. The Backslider. The case of Simon (8:1- 
24) illustrates the condition of those who obey the 
Lord, but afterwards turn from him and go back 
into sin. He is not told to believe or be baptized, 
but to repent and pray to God for forgiveness. 

Thus is precept illuminated by example, the most 
effective way of teaching, and also the most success- 
ful manner of m.oving men to action. 

Supposing the young Hindoo to have grasped 
the truth and obeyed it, he is now a Christian and the 

Of his spiritual nature asserts 

3. Third Want ., ir n\-4. a ( 

itself. Cjratitude for mercies re- 
ceived, a consuming desire to tell others of his 
Saviour, and an intense yearning to know more of 
him, and to become m^ore like him, is the great pur- 
pose of his life. The song of his heart is: 

"More about Jesus would I know, 
More of his grace to others show; 
More of his saving fullness see, 
More of his love who died for me. 

"More about Jesus let me learn, 
More of his holy will discern ; 
Spirit of God, my teacher be, 
Showing the things ot Christ to me. 

"More about Jesus, in his v/ord, 
Holding communion with my Lord; 
Hearing his voice in every line, 
Making each faithful saying mine." 



56 HOW TO BE SAVED 

His teacher now directs him in the study of the 
Epistles, the third division of the New Testament. 
Beginning with Romans, each of these twenty -one 
books is studied, and they are found to be directed 
to Christians to show them how to Hve the Christian 
life. He hears Paul talking to a young man like 
himself, and saying, "Study to show thyself ap- 
proved unto God, a workman that needeth not to 
be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 
Tim. 2: 15). Again he hears this father in the gos- 
pel exhorting his son in these words : "These things 
I write unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly ; 
but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou 
oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, 
which is the church of the living God, the pillar and 
■ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3: 14, 15). He also 
reads from the Roman letter (1:1, 2): *T beseech 
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that 
ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept- 
able unto God, which is your reasonable service." 
And from 1 Cor. 3 : 9, he reads : "For we are laborers 
together with God; ye are God's husbandry, ye are 
God's building." 

His soul revels in the richness of these and kin- 
dred Scriptures, and he is soon active and useful in 
the church. Wherever duty calls he responds, and 
whenever the door of opportunity opens he enters 
in. He grows in grace and in the knowledge of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and becomes a pillar in the 
temple of God. 

The Christian of to-day ought to learn anew this 
old lesson, for we are saved to serve. In spiritual 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 57 

things as in natural, the inexorable law of life is do 
or die. The unused arm withers, the unused eye 
loses the power of vision, and the idle brain loses 
the power of thought. The Jordan waters, as they 
come down from the snow-covered mountains of 
Lebanon, are clear as crystals, beautiful as diamonds, 
and full of life. But when they enter the fatal sea 
and become inactive, they die. 

The Master's life, the model for the lives of his 
disciples, was one of service. At the early age of 
twelve he said: "I must be about my Father's busi- 
ness" (Luke 2:49). In the midst of his ministry, 
he said: 'T must work the work of him that sent 
me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man 
can work" (John 9:4). When Peter would sum 
up in a single short sentence the key to His wonder- 
ful life, he says, "He went about doing good" (Acts 
10:38). There will be but two classes at the judg- 
ment: those who did and those who did not (Matt. 
25:31-46). 

The supreme want of the church is workers: 
active, tireless, consecrated and strong, who can be 
relied upon ; men and women not only built on the 
rock, but of the rock: granite Christians (1 Pet. 2: 
5). The task committed to her hands is nothing 
less than the salvation of a lost world : a gigantic 
undertaking. To bring it thus far has cost the blood 
of an army of martyrs, and the sacrifice of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. May we pray and labor for power 
sufficient for this great task. 

A little child was asked why she wished to be a 
painter. "That I may help God paint the skies and 



58 HOW TO BE SAVED 

clouds at sunset," was the reply. But God wants 
no such help. In arching the skies, in piling up 
mountains, in painting the rainbow, and in the thou- 
sands of other works, he has no human partner. He 
asks not our help in burnishing the sun, in keeping 
the moon and stars in their orbits, or in beautifying 
and sweetening the roses, and in making gorgeous 
the garments of the birds. But in the greatest of 
all work, the saving of souls, he honors us by making 
us his coworkers. 

Now let us at a single bound pass over a half 
century of time, and find ourselves in the house of 
this same man, now fourscore years of age. The 
eyes once so clear and bright are now dim ; the ears 
once so sensitive to sound are now dull ; the hair 
cnce black as the raven's wing is now white as 
snow ; and the manly form once erect and strong 
now stoops and staggers under the weight of years. 
He is no longer able to meet with his brethren in 
public worship ; his active work has all been turned 
ever to others ; and, sitting there on the summit of 
a long and fruitful life, he gazes yearningly into the 
future. He has been so busy hitherto that he has 
had little time for thoughts of this kind. His old 
teacher is still at his elbow, and he recognizes in all 
this the 

Of his spiritual nature; and he 

4. Fourth Want xu r> 1 r t? 1 ^- ^i. 

opens the Book of Revlation, the 

fourth division of the New Testament, the pro- 
phetic department, that this want may be supplied. 
He reads to him: "Blessed are the dead who die in 
the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith the Spirit, that 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 59 

they may rest from their labors ; and their works do 
follow them" (14: 13). The old man puts his hand 
to his ear, saying, **My hearing is not as keen as it 
once was; please repeat that verse to me;" and it is 
repeated slowly and distinctly. "Thank God for 
that precious passage," he continued. "It pro- 
nounces a blessing on those who die *in the Lord/ 
I have been in him for fifty years and I am soon to 
die. And it promises 'rest.' I am tired. The long, 
rough road has worn me out. And now as a tender 
mother at the close of day rocks the tired child to 
sleep, so God will lay my wearied body down to rest 
in the bosom of the earth till the resurrection morn. 
But this is not all. It says my works are to follow 
me. I have not done much, it is true, but I have 
done something; and these little waves of influence 
which I placed in motion, like pebbles dropped in 
the sea, will continue to roll on long after I am 
gone, and they will never stop until they reach the 
shores of eternity." 

His teacher quotes another passage : "And God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there 
shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; 
neither shall there be any more pain, for the former 
things are passed away" (21:4). His old face 
brightens, and he praises God that there will be no 
pain, no sorrow, no tears and no death in the home 
to which he is going. 

A third time his reader quotes to him: "Blessed 
are they who do his commandments, that they may 
have right to the tree of life, and may enter in 
through the gates into the city" (22:14). Again 



60 HOW TO BE SAVED 

this ripe old saint breaks forth in praise. "I remem- 
ber," he says, "that in Eden, before sin came, our 
parents held sweet communion with Gk)d, and dwelt 
near the tree of life. But when sin entered they 
were driven out into the cold, dark world; but in 
Christ we are to regain all this, and to retain it for- 
ever and forever." And with this last utterance 
the angels came and bore his yearning spirit back to 
God. 

A wonderful book is this. It found this young 
man groping his way in darkness, and it gave him 
light. It first led him to the Christ, the Son of 
God, and the Saviour of men. It next told him how 
to be saved. It then led him in ways of usefulness 
and joy as a Christian. And finally it opened the 
grave for him and hung a light in its dark vault; 
it unbolted the gates of the New Jerusalem and 
ushered him into the presence of the tree of life, 
and God wiped all his tears away. How shall we 
account for its perfect adaptation to the wants of 
man? There is but one way: each has a common 
author. The Being who created man with these 
fourfold wants is the Author of this book with its 
fourfold supplies. 

Review. 

1. Why is the New Testament of special inter- 
est to us? 

2. Is it systematically arranged? 

3. Give the first want and first division. 

4. What four miracles were studied by the 
Hindoo ? 



HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT 61 

5. What was the purpose of the miracles? 

6. Give the incident of "Wilhe and LilHe." 

7. What is the second want and second division ? 

8. Give the four classes outside the church. 

9. Give the third want and third division. 

10. Give the fourth want and fourth division. 

11. What three passages are studied by the Hin- 
doo? 



IV. 

THE WISDOM AND PURITY OF 
THE CHRIST 



63 



OUTUNE— CHAPTER IV. 

1. Manifestations of Wisdom. 

a. The Wisdom of Childhood. 
h. The Sermon on the Mount. 

c. Church and State. 

d. Marriage in Heaven. 

e. The Great Commandment. 
/. The Adulterous Woman. 
g. The Parables. 

2. Peculiarities. 

a. He Made No Mistakes. 
h. He Spoke without Effort. 

c. He Spoke without Hesitation or 

Consultation. 

d. He Never Expressed a Doubt. 

e. His Language Supremely Simple. 

/. He Combined Marvelous Sweep, Per- 
fection AND Power. 
g. His Words Are Full of Inspiration. 
h. His Teachings Are Small in Bulk. 

3. How Account for All This. 

a. Not by Long Life and Experience. 
h. Not by Superior Advantages. 
c. But Because He is God Manifest in 
THE Flesh. 

4. Manifestations of Purity. 

a. Freedom from Selfishness. 
h. Freedom from Ambition. 

64 



c. Freedom from Pride. 

d. Freedom from Covetousness. 

e. Freedom from Revenge. 

/. Freedom from Sectarianism. 

5. Completeness of His Character. 

6. A Few Witnesses. 



65 



IV. 

The Wisdom and Purity of the Christ. 

In our studies thus far we have settled, we hope, 
three important points: the existence of God, the 
Bible as his message to man, and the perfect adapta- 
tion of the New Testament to our spiritual wants. 
In the last of these studies we found the Christ, and 
saw something of his wonderful power — sufficient, 
perhaps, for our present purposes. But in this and 
in our next two studies we will linger about him. 
He is so inseparably associated with Christianity that 
he must have a large place in the study of its first 
principles. We can not ignore the sun while we 
study astronomy. 

Our present purpose is to show that his wisdom 

and purity prove his divinity. "Never man spake 

like this man" (John 7:46). If he is divine, this 

must be true. His speech must not be that of man 

with his faults and frailties, but the voice of God, 

and perfect as its Author. 

a. The Wisdom of Child- 

1. Manifestations jjqod. Doubtless His mother, 
of His Wisdom , , .„ .. , 

when we see her, will tell us that 

while he was a little boy playing about her knees, 
he said many strangely wise things for one of his 
years. But so far as the records show, his wisdom 
was first manifested in his twelfth year. His par- 
ents had taken him to Jerusalem. What wonders 

66 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 67 

greeted his vision. The great buildings, the mag- 
nificent court, the impressive ritualism, the solemn 
sacrifices, the sublime music, and the millions of 
worshipers, must have deeply impressed his young 
mind. But these were not the most impressive 
things. The temple was the seat of Jewish knowl- 
edge. There their teachers met in council; there 
their Scriptures were interpreted ; there the law was 
expounded; and so interested was the boy in all this 
that when his parents started on the homeward 
journey he lingered in this delightful atmosphere. 
A search was made for him, and he was found in 
the midst of these teachers, hearing them and asking 
them questions (Luke 2:46). How we wish we 
knew some of the questions he asked. But we will 
have to wait till we pass over to the other side. 

b. The Sermon on the Mount. Even at the 
risk of being called sacrilegious, I venture to say 
that this old and revered title "Sermon on the 
Mount" is largely a misnomer. This is no mere 
sermon, but rather the inaugural address of our 
King as he mounts his throne and begins his reign; 
a general summary of the principles in the charter 
of the new government. 

Is it feeble and commonplace? Does it savor of 
the spirit and thought of the time and place in 
which it was spoken? Does it not rise above these 
like the dome of heaven rises above the earth? Is 
not every word and sentence as fresh as when they 
fell from the gracious lips of the great Teacher? 
Does it not contain the germs of individual and 
national civilization, and the truth by which a lost 



68 HOW TO BE SAVED 

world is to be saved? Does it not bear the unmis- 
takable impress of heaven? 

c. Church and State. Few questions are more 
complex than that of church and state. And the 
Pharisees and Herodians, anxious to involve Christ 
in their party quarrels, asked him whether it was 
lawful to pay taxes to Rome. A shrewd trap truly. 
Whatever the answer, he must be entangled. If 
he answers "Yes," the Jews will turn against him. 
If the answer is "No," the Romans will "arrest him 
as a rebel against Caesar. But his answer is neither 
"Yes" nor "No." He called for a penny, bearing the 
image and superscription of the Roman emperor, 
and said, "Render unto Csesar the things that are 
Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," 
and thus laid down the only principle by which this 
vexed question can be settled (Matt. 22:15-22). 

d. Marriage in Heaven. The Sadducee, with 
his coarse conceptions, incapable of thinking on 
spiritual things, thought to entangle Him on the 
subject of marriage in the future world. They tell 
him of a woman who had seven husbands, and the 
seven were brothers, and ask, if there is to be such 
a world, whose wife will she be. He told them that 
life would be continuous, but that the true life was 
spiritual, not fleshly, and therefore the future life, 
as regarding marriage, would be like that of the 
angels (Matt. 22:23-30). 

e. The Great Commandment.. The Talmud 
says there are 613 commandments — 248 positive and 
365 negative — and none but an angel could keep 
them, hence their anxiety to find one comprehensive 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 69 

enough to embrace them all, and so he is asked: 
^'Master, which is the great commandment in the 
law? Jesus said unto them, Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind." Here they would have 
had him stop ; for in their selfishness and conceit 
they recognized no obligation to others. But he 
did not stop, but continued: "This is the first and 
great commandment; but the second is like unto it. 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
two commandments hang all the law and the proph- 
ets" (Matt. 22:34-40). 

/. The Adulterous Woman. And when these 
sanctimonious hypocrites, knowing his mercy to the 
erring, seek to involve him in a controversy with 
Moses, he drove the truth into their guilty con- 
sciences by saying, "He that is without sin among 
you, let him first cast a Stone at her;" and they, 
"being convicted by their own conscience, went out 
cne by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the 
last." And turning to the woman, he asked : "Where 
are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned 
thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said 
unto her. Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin 
no more" (John 8:3-11). 

g. The Parables. Much of the Master's teach- 
ing was parabolic, the simplest, and yet the most diffi- 
cult method of teaching. At first sight one feels that 
any one could use it. But here, as everywhere else, 
Christ is inimitable. These parables refuse to be 
duplicated. A brainy unbeliever once declared his 
ability to duplicate them, and promised to do it in 



70 HOW TO BE SAVED 

one day. But at night he asked for more time, and 
another day was given. When it was gone he still 
wanted time, and a week was added. Then a month, 
and then three months, when he gave up the effort, 
saying he believed them beyond the power of man. 
And such is the conviction of those who have 
studied them most. They grow bigger and brighter 
the more we study them; and what at first seemed 
a surface truth, deepens into a fathomless sea; and 
tlie margins apparently so near together become as 
wide as the world. 

Schaff well says : "Christ's intellect is truly mar- 
velous ; he was never deceived by appearances ; he 
penetrated through the surface, and always went 
straight to the heart and marrow ; he never asked a 
question which was not perfectly appropriate; he 
never gave an answer which was not fully to the 
point, or which could be better conceived or exressed. 
How often did he silence his cavilers, the shrewd 
and cunning priests and scribes, by a short sentence 
which hit the nail on the head, or struck like light- 
ning into their conscience, or wisely evaded the trap 
laid for him. Is such an intellect clear as the sky, 
bracing as the mountain air, sharp and penetrating 
as a sword, thoroughly healthy and vigorous, always 
ready and always self-possessed" — is this the intel- 
lect of a mere man? Is he but one in many of the 
world's great thinkers ? Is he not rather the many in 
one — totalized humanity? Is his not a voice divine? 

There are striking peculiarities 
2. ecu an les 2^ltJQu^ ^^e wisdom of Christ which 

argue with equal force his divinity. 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 71 

a. He Made No Mistakes. Other great teachers, 
as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, often confess their 
errors. But Christ made no such confession. And 
the shrewd enemies who watched his every word and 
work, failed to find a mistake. 

b. He Spoke without Effort. Other famous 
men often reach dizzy summits, but it is after long 
and labored effort. But he speaks the highest truth 
in simplest tones, and there is no sign of weariness; 
no more than in the mountain spring from which 
fresh, sweet water is always gushing. 

c. He Spoke without Hesitation or Consul- 
tation. The wisest men hesitate and consult before 
venturing an answer on great questions. But Christ, 
whatever the question, always answered promptly, 
and without counsel. On the green grass, on the bow 
of the boat, on the mountain-side, in the home, in the 
synagogue, everywhere this was true. 

d. He Never Expressed a Doubt. Even great 
Socrates often left his disciples in doubt. Of im- 
mortality he said : "If death is a removal hence to 
another place, and if what is said of death is true, 
then those who live in Hades are henceforth im- 
mortal." And among his last words, after receiving 
the fatal cup, he said: "The hour of separation has 
come; I go to die, and you to live; but as to which 
of us is destined to an improved being is concealed 
from every one except God." But however intricate 
and difficult the theme, Christ always spoke with 
absolute assurance. 

e. His Language Was Supremely Simple. 
Goldsmith says of Johnson: "You make your little 



72 HOW TO BE SAVED 

fish talk like whales." And many others have this 
fondness for swollen language. But Christ spoke o£ 
the loftiest subjects in the simplest language. Who 
ever needs a dictionary to study his words ? His lan- 
guage is simple enough for a primer, and yet each 
word sparkles like a gem, and his sentences and ser- 
mons dazzle like a cabinet filled with diamonds. No 
wonder the common people heard him gladly. 

/. He Combined Marvelous Sweep, Perfection 
AND Power. Read the parable of the prodigal son. 
Note its mastery of principles; its breadth of vision; 
its knowledge of the human heart; its simplicity of 
definition and its grasping and grouping of details. 
One might as well attempt to brighten the sun or 
sweeten the rose as to try to improve this masterpiece 
in composition. And Dickens, supreme in the 
pathetic style, when asked for the most pathetic 
story in literature, answered, "The Prodigal Son." 

g. His Words Are Full of Inspiration. 
Shakespeare has inspired many during the three hun- 
dred years since he wrote. It is claimed that "twelve 
great students of four nationalities" have written 
commentaries on his dramas. This is remarkable. 
But no admirer of the bard of Stratford has been 
inspired by him to leave home and loved ones and 
go to darkest Africa to give the message of his 
adored master to the people there. Yet during the 
last ctntnry alone the intellectual stimulus of 
Christ's v/ords has been so great that more than 
two hundred dictionaries and grammars, in as many 
different languages and dialects, have been given 
to the world. 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 73 

h. His Teachings Are Small in Bulk. We 
regret that no shorthand reporter was there to 
catch every word of wisdom as it fell from his lips, 
and so we have but little of his teaching. Augus- 
tine uses thirty volumes to systematize his theol- 
ogy; and Calvin uses forty; and Paul writes more 
of the New Testament than does its Lord. We 
can easily read all he said in a single hour. He 
seemed not to care to preserve his words, but cast 
them abroad like the sower does the seed, knowing 
that they would not return unto him void, but would 
accomplish that whereunto they were sent (Isa. 55: 

11). 

There must be a solution for 
3. How Account ^i • ^ i i ixrt. j. • 

f All Th* strange problem. What is 

it? 

a. It Is Not His Long Life and Rich Expe- 
rience. Socrates was threescore and ten when 
he drank the fatal poison; and Plato was eleven 
years older when he died. But Christ was only 
thirty-three when they nailed him to the cross. 

b. It Is Not His Superior Advantages. The 
world's famous teachers have generally been life- 
long students under the most favorable circum- 
stances. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, etc., spent their 
lives in studying books and listening to living teach- 
ers. And they traversed the world in search of 
knowledge. They sat at the feet of the priests, 
sages and philosophers of Egypt, India, Italy and 
Greece. But Christ had no schools except the very 
poor ones of his people, and no books except the 
Old Testament, and he was too busy at the car- 



74 HOW TO BE SAVED 

penter's bench to go to the world's famous teachers, 
and there were no great ones in Galilee. 

c. Because He Is God Manifest in the 
Flesh. In the eloquent language of another we 
close: "Without science and learning he has shed 
more light on things human and divine than all 
other scholars and philosophers combined. With- 
out the eloquence of the schools he has spoken 
such words of beauty and power as were never 
spoken before or since. Without writing a single 
line, he has set in motion more pens, furnished 
themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, and 
sublime poems and works of art, than whole armies 
of great men of ancient and modern times. He has 
built a pyramid of knowledge to which no man has 
made an addition in two thousand years." 

If Jesus is divine, he must be 
4. Manifestations r ^ • -^ 1 

f H' P 't ^^ perfect m purity as we have 

found him in wisdom ; and if he is 
thus perfect, he is divine. Here the issue is sharply 
drawn, for what greater exception in human life 
than to find a sinless man? 

Plutarch says: "The evil passions of men are 
inborn, and not introduced from without; and if 
strict discipline did not come to the aid, man would 
hardly be tamer than the wildest beast." Seneca 
says: "All is full of crime and vice. Iniquity pre- 
vails In every heart; and innocence has not only 
become rare, but has entirely disappeared." And 
Marcus Aurelius says: "Faithfulness, sense of hon- 
or, righteousness and truth have taken their flight 
from the wide earth to heaven." 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 75 

And this testimony from heathendom is corrobo- 
rated by the church. The entire Christian world, 
Greek, Latin and Protestant, is a unit as to the 
universality of sin. Even the Virgin Mary is not 
an exception, for her sinlessness is explained in a 
Papal decision of 1854, as the result of a miraculous 
interposition, and the reflex influence of her holy 
Son. 

But, bad as was the world at large, there was 
never a worse age and place than those of the 
advent of Christ. When he looked out from the 
manger of Bethlehem he saw a world rotten to 
the core. This was specially true of Palestine, 
and in Palestine there was no spot quite so bad 
as Nazareth. It was so corrupt that there was 
a proverb: "No good thing cometh out of Naz- 
areth." It was the headquarters of the Roman 
legions, and, maelstrom-like, had sucked into its 
voracious maw all evil. There is no such place of 
corruption as a mass of men with no women except 
those who are bad. The best people fled from the 
place as from a pestilence. And yet it was here 
Christ spent his childhood, youth and manhood, 
and it was here he grew into the fairest flower that 
ever bloomed in the gardens of God. Like the 
water-lily in the filthy slough, he developed the 
whiteness and purity of the snow despite his sur- 
roundings. 

This is the high claim we make for our Christ. 
We assert that he is the only one who has carried 
the spotless purity of childhood through youth and 
manhood; the only one who has passed through life. 



76 HOW TO BE SAVED 

touching it at every point, and then emerging from 
the tomb and going back to the bosom of the 
Father as pure as when he came. And this is the 
claim he makes for himself. Speaking to those 
who were thirsting for his blood, he said: "Who 
of you convicteth me of sin?" (John 8:46). And 
this challenge has been ringing down through the 
ages from that day to this, and no man has yet 
been able to convict him of sin. 

In the light of the law of environment this is 
marvelous. Man has been called a creature of cir- 
cumstances. He seldom rises above his surround- 
ings, and his early influences usually cling to him 
through life, making or marring his character. No 
one expects the powers of resistance in the hothouse 
plant, and no one expects them absent from the 
storm-shaken oak on the unsheltered hills. Oliver 
Twist never fully recovered from his stay in Fagin's 
den, and Jean Valjean never cast off the influence 
of his convict life. But Christ, the Sun of right- 
eousness (Mai. 4:2), was as little contaminated by 
the evils which surrounded him as is the king of 
day who lights and purifies the filthy earth. 
Let us now note this thought in detail: 
a. He Was Free from Selfishness. This 
detestable vice, so abhorred in others, and yet so 
common in ourselves, had no place in him. It was 
he who said: "It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." And when we imbibe this spirit we move 
out from the lowlands of selfishness, where every 
drop of blood is poisoned, and we are sick and 
barren, to the highlands of benevolence, where is 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 17 

perpetual health, joy and fruitfulness. Renan says: 
"He is free from all selfishness, the source of our 
sorrow, and thought only of his work, his race and 
humanity." 

h. He Was Free from Ambition. He was 
ambitious, it is true, but it was a holy ambition. He 
would reign, but only in the hearts of men; and for 
them he freely gave his love, his life, and his 
heart's blood. His ambition was unlike that of 
Cyrus, Alexander and Napoleon as vice is unlike 
virtue, as right is unlike wrong. His people once 
pressed him to take a crown, but he departed from 
them into a mountain that he might be alone with 
his Father (John 6: 15). "Ecce Homo" says: "We 
scarcely know which to admire most, the prodigious 
originality of his conceptions, or his entire free- 
dom from worldly ambition in the execution of his 
plans." 

c. He Was Free from Pride. This was the 
first sin to enter the human heart, and it seems 
determined to be the last to leave it. Give man 
money, position and power, and he is filled with 
pride. When the flowers are fullest of the dews of 
heaven, and when the wheat is richest and ripest, 
they bow their heads in gratitude; but the more we 
are enriched of God, the higher our heads. But 
how different the Christ. When he preached his 
great sermons he acted as if there were scores about 
him who could have done better. After his stupen- 
dous miracles he seemed unconscious of the fact 
that he was the only being on earth who could do 
such deeds. When he lifted the heavy heel of death 



78 HOW TO BE SAVED 

from the heart of Lazarus he walked away from 
the grave as if he were leaving the carpenter's 
shop after a day of ordinary toil. 

d. He Was Free from Covetousness. This sin 
is well-nigh universal among men, but there is no 
trace of it in the Saviour. He might have had mil- 
lions for his cures, and yet he lived and died the 
poorest of the poor. "The foxes have holes, and 
the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man 
hath not where to rest his head" (Matt. 8: 20). He 
was so poor that a miracle was necessary to pay 
his temple tax (Matt. 17:24-27). And he was so 
poor in death that his body rested in a borrowed 
grave (Matt. 27:59, 60). 

e. He Was Free from Revenge. Plato, being 
told that some one was circulating slanderous and 
malicious reports about him, said: "What of it? I 
will take care to so live that none will believe 
them." How beautiful the thought that a pure life 
is its own best defense; and how noble the heart 
that would only silence, not harm, an enemy. But 
Christ seeks not simply to silence, but to save, his 
foes. When in the death agony of Calvary, he 
prayed: "Father, forgive them; they know not 
what they do." And when he sent his disciples 
forth to save men, he told them to go first to Jeru- 
salem and preach to those who murdered him. 

/. He Was Free from Sectarianism. How 
great the difference between Jesus and the great 
men of the world at this point. They are sectional, 
but he is universal. They are identified with some 
particular people and age, and partake of their 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 79 

peculiarities. Even great Moses, who is honored 
and revered in three religions, is not only a Jew 
by birth, but he is also a Jew in feelings, habit 
and thought. Demosthenes rose high in his day, but 
he never rose above the Greek type of thought and 
character. Luther can never be understood if not 
studied as a German. Calvin, though exiled from 
his native land, lived and died a Frenchman. And 
our beloved Washington can never be to another 
people what he is to Americans. The vision and 
influence of these choice spirits extend far beyond 
their nation and time, but they are not universal. 
But what they were to their particular people, place 
and age, Christ is to all. And this despite the 
dominant idea of his people. They thought he was 
to be a king, but it was to be emphatically a Jewish 
king; he was to reign over the world, but his 
throne, with its special privileges, was to be in 
Jerusalem. Every teacher, including his father and 
mother, endeavored to impress him with this 
thought. Yet this young Hebrew carpenter so 
conquered the sectarianism about him that he rose 
above the walls of separation between Jew and Gen- 
tile as completely as if he had lived on another 
planet. He is the one universal character, the one 
sole cosmopolitan. He was the ideal Jew, or they 
would not have tried to force their crown upon 
him; he is equally the ideal of the polished Greeks, 
who, when they see him in his beauty, forget their 
hatred of the Jew in their admiration of him. And 
the same is true when he is preached to the war- 
like Roman, the liberty-loving German, the dark- 

6 



80 HOW TO BE SAVED 

browed African, the clannish Chinaman, the pro- 
gressive Japanese, the cultured Englishman, the 
elegant Frenchman, the sturdy Scotchman and the 
wide-awake American. Each sees in him his ideal. 
Like the sun, he can not be monopolized by any, 
but shines equally for all. 

The virtues just enumerated 
5. Completeness ^j.^ ^ot all that are found in the 

p. character of Jesus. They are only 

specimens. All are there. Not a 
single gem is absent from the tiara of moral beauty 
which encircles his brow. And they are not only 
present, but they are perfectly blended. Nothing 
is out of proportion; the symmetry is complete. 
There is no one-sidedness in him. No one virtue 
towered above the rest, but each was moderated 
and completed by its opposite grace. His character 
never lost its equilibrium, and hence never needed 
readjustment or modification. He was vivacious 
without levity; vigorous without violence; serious 
without melancholy; dignified without pride or pre- 
sumption. He combined the strength of the lion 
with the meekness of the lamb, and the wisdom 
of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove. 
Every element of character finds in him the hap- 
piest harmony — harmony like that in the summer 
and winter, and in the day and night. 

Let the reader remember that this is wisdom 
and purity combined. The brainiest men are not 
always the best; and their friends frequently have 
to in«^i«?t that their lack of moral worth should be 
atoned for by mental fiber. We are to see the 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 81 

genius as he soars in the heavens rather than the 
sinner as he walks on the earth. Byron could 
dwell among the stars, while his heart fed on 
carrion. Burns could sing like an angel, but, alas! 
he did not live like one. And Burr was brilliant 
but bad. Not so with the Christ. His heart is as 
pure as his head is clear. His life is without blot 
or blemish, and has neither parallel nor approach. 
And herein, perhaps more than at any other single 
point, is the seat of his power over men. In the 
French Revolution, when the mob, wild with rage, 
swept like a flood through the streets of Paris, de- 
stroying everything in its way, a well-known man, 
of pure and noble character, came into its presence 
and waved his hand for a hearing. The leader 
commanded a halt, and said, "Soldiers, we are in 
the presence of a man who represents seventy 
years of noble living;" and the mob uncovered its 
head and listened. It was a great thing to say of 
Jesus, "Never man spake like this man;" but it is 
greater to say, "Never man lived like this man." 

We close by callinef a few of 

6. A Few Wit- ^, • . r v u 

the myriads of witnesses who 
nesses .r 

have testified for him. Some are 

friends and some are foes, but as to his purity 
there is but one voice. Pilate's wife, with the sel- 
dom erring instinct of woman, warned her husband 
in these words : "Have thou nothing to do with that 
just man." And when Pilate, weak and wavering, 
delivered him up to be crucified, he washed his 
hands in the presence of the mob he feared, and 
said: "I am innocent of the blood of this just per- 



82 HOW TO BE SAVED 

son." Judas, the betrayer, brought back the thirty 
pieces of silver and cast them at the feet of those 
who gave it, saying: "I have sinned in that I have 
betrayed innocent blood." The centurion and sol- 
diers who executed him said: "Truly this was the 
Son of God." 

Besides these who saw him in the flesh, let us 
hear others of a later day. Rousseau: "If the life 
and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life 
and death of Jesus are those of a God." Napoleon: 
"I know men ; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not 
a man." Channing: "Jesus not only was, he is still, 
the Son of God, the Saviour of the world." 
Strauss: "Christ represents within the religious 
sphere the highest point, beyond which posterity 
can never go." Jean Paul : "Jesus is the purest 
among the mighty, and the mightiest among the 
pure." Renan: "Whatever may be the surprises 
of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. Re- 
pose now in thy glory, thy work is finished, thy 
divinity is established. A thousand times more 
living, a thousand times more loved since thy 
death, than during the days of thy course here 
below, thou shalt become the corner-stone of human- 
ity, insomuch that to tear thy name from the 
world would be to shake it to its very founda- 
tions. No more shall men distinguish between thee 
and God." 

Review. 

1. Name the seven proofs of superior wisdom, 

2. Give Schaff's comment. 



WISDOM AND PURITY OF CHRIST 83 

3. Mention eight peculiarities of Christ's wis- 
dom. 

4. How account for this wonderful wisdom? 

5. What of the law of environment as applied 
to the Christ? 

6. Name six examples of Christ's purity. 

7. What of the "completeness" of the Christ 
life? 

8. Name nine witnesses on the question of 
Christ's divinity. 



V 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 



86 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER V. 

1. Conceded Facts. 

2. Infidel Position. 

3. Christian Position. 

4. The Trilemma. 

a. Were They Deceived? 

b. Were They Deceivers? 

c. They Were Reliable Witnesses. 

5. Corroborative Testimony. 

a. Influence of the Resurrection on 

the Disciples. 

b. Triumph of the Truth. 

c. The Lord's Supper. 

d. The Lord's Day. 



86 



V. 

The Resurrection of Christ. 

Having seen the power of God manifested in 
the miracles of Christ, the knowledge of God in 
his wisdom, and the purity of God in his life, we 
might rest the claims of his divinity; but we wish 
to make certainty doubly sure by witnessing the 
climax of proof in his resurrection from the dead. 
Paul names the resurrection (Heb. 6:1, 2) as one 
of the things belonging to the principles of the doc- 
trine of Christ, and he hinges everything on it. 
"If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are 
yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). This is the 
key to the whole question. If this greatest of all 
miracles is true, then there need be no question 
about the supernatural ; but, if false, we might as 
well end the whole matter now and here and give 
up all hope. If he rose from the dead, Christianity 
is true; if not, it is false. 

There are some important 

I. Conceded e , jjr n u'l. 

p facts conceded by all, which 

should be noted in the beginning 

of this investigation. It is conceded that Jesus of 

Nazareth lived at the time and place ascribed to 

him in the New Testament; that he was crucified 

in Jerusalem during the reign of Pontius Pilate; 

that his body was buried in Joseph's new tomb; 

that a great stone was laid at the mouth of the 

87 



B8 HOW TO BE SAVED 

tomb, and that on the morning of the third day the 

body was gone. 

On Sunday morning, when it 

T^ . . was discovered that the body was 

Position , 

gone, the soldiers came mto the 
city and reported the fact to the chief priests, and 
they called a council and gave large money to the 
soldiers, saying: "Say ye, His disciples came by 
night, and stole him away while we slept. And if 
this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade 
him, and save you. So they took the money, and 
did as they were taught" (Matt. 28: 11-15). 

In support of this position they could command 
the testimony of sixty witnesses, an ample number, 
who were on the ground — the right place — for the 
purpose of guarding the tomb. 

But before we hear them, let us remember that 
three of the strongest motives ever used by Satan 
for the corruption of a witness were used in this 
case : disgrace, bribery and death. Every soldier 
would shrink from the disgrace of having a body 
committed to his care stolen; money has made its 
millions swerve from the right; and all men in their 
normal condition love life, and a Roman guard 
forfeited his own when he allowed his prisoner to 
escape. 

Let us hear these witnesses. Behold sixty 
bronzed veterans filing into the witness-box and each 
saying that the body was stolen while they were 
guarding the tomb. This is an unreasonable story. 
If they had said a large force had overpowered 
them and taken the body from them, it would. 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 89 

Other things being equal, have been reasonable. 
But it is not thinkable that sixty veteran soldiers, 
familiar with guard duty, in charge of a safe filled 
with valuables, would not only sleep — all of them 
at the same time — but would sleep so soundly that 
thieves could rifle the safe and escape with the 
treasure without waking one of them. This is un- 
believable. 

But, bad as this is, it is not the worst. Ask 
these gentlemen what they were doing at the time 
of the theft, and they say they were sleeping. This 
adds absurdity to unreasonableness. If they were 
asleep, how did they know that the body was 
stolen? And, if stolen, how did they know that 
the disciples stole it? Their story is false on its 
face; and such witnesses would be ruled out of any 
court of justice. 

But the tissue of absurdities connected with their 

story is not yet complete. If the body was stolen, 

why did they not require the timid disciples to bring 

it back? One public exhibition of that mangled 

form — so well known — would have settled at one 

fell blow, and for all time, the story of Jesus and 

the resurrection. 

The witnesses in this case are 

^' ^ . . "^ *^^ more than five hundred, and they 
Position 11. 

saw him frequently durmg a 

period of forty days after the resurrection, and 

talked and ate with him. The number is ample, as 

in the other case, and their means of knowledge 

all that could be desired. And in addition to this, 

and of the most vital importance, remember that 



90 HOW TO BE SAVED 

there were no motives for them to testify falsely. 
But, on the other hand, everything which is hard 
to bear, and which men instinctively try to avoid — 
shame, persecution and death — stood out luridly 
before them as their inevitable fate. 

The truth must be somewhere 
4. The Trilemma • ^t • ^ -i ^1 j 

m this trilemma: they were de- 
ceived, they were deceivers, or they were reliable 
witnesses. 

a. Were They Deceived? Their mental condi- 
tion forbade deception. Every one of them, inclu- 
ding those keen-visioned women, expected an earthly 
kingdom. That was why the mother of James and 
John requested the chief places for her sons; that 
was why Peter and others, thinking all was lost, 
returned to their fishing-boats; that was why the 
two disciples, on their way to Emmaus, were so 
sad and hopeless. And up to the time of his ascen- 
sion this thought clung to them: "Lord, wilt thou 
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 
1:6). The resurrection of Jesus was as far from 
their thoughts as his visible appearance is from the 
thought of the reader of these lines at this time. 

They saw him too often to be deceived. I have 
been preaching in this city for twenty- four years; 
have associated with the people in the church, on 
the streets, and in their homes ; have been with them 
in their glad days and their sad ones — at the mar- 
riage altar, and by the open grave — and they know 
me. Suppose I should disappear, and be gone for 
three days; after which, for a period of forty days, 
I should meet and mingle with five hundred of 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 91 

them, talking and eating with them, would they 
know me? This is the parallel as to Christ, and it 
must carry conviction to the heart of every unbiased 
reader. 

"But did they not doubt?" (Matt. 28:17). 
Yes, some of them did doubt. But what of it? 
That fact makes them the more reliable as wit- 
nesses. It shows that they were not the credulous 
dupes some would have us believe them to be, but 
honest searchers after truth, ready and determined 
to sift all the facts regarding the resurrection. And 
let it never be forgotten that after this examination 
their doubts vanished. Thomas, the chief doubter, 
after the fullest possible examination of the case, 
cried, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). 
And of the others, after a similar investigation, it 
was said: "And none of the disciples durst ask 
him. Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord" 
(John 21:1-12). 

b. Were They Deceivers? There was no 
motive for deception, and sane men like these al- 
ways act from motive. No one had offered them 
money as they did the soldiers; and there was no 
popularity to gain, for it now looked like a lost 
cause. On the other hand, they had all to lose. 
But, in spite of this, if he did not rise, they told 
a deliberate falsehood, and one diametrically 
opposed to their every interest, both for time and 
for eternity. Would you do such a thing as this? 
They gave the highest possible evidence of their 
honesty. As soon as they began to preach the 
resurrection their persecutions began. They were 



92 HOW TO BE SAVED 

thrust into prison, but released with the command 
to desist from their preaching. Then they were 
scourged. Soon Stephen became the first martyr, 
and with his dying breath he declared that he saw 
the risen Christ standing on the right hand of 
God. Next James was beheaded, and Peter was 
waiting for the day of execution. And thus it 
continued until nearly all of them were slain; but 
not one of them changed his testimony; not a single 
one of them turned "state's evidence." 

c. They Were Reliable Witnesses. The 
truth must be in this third horn of the trilemma, 
for there is no other reasonable explanation of their 
conduct. 

Greenleaf, perhaps the highest authority on evi- 
dence that ever lived, has thoroughly sifted this 
evidence, and here is his conclusion: "Let the wit- 
nesses be compared with themselves, with each 
other, and with surrounding facts and circum- 
stances; and let their testimony be sifted as if it 
were given in a court of justice on the side of the 
adverse party, the witnesses being subjected to a 
vigorous cross-examination. The result, it is con- 
fidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction 
of their integrity, ability and truth. In the course 
of such an examination the undesigned coincidences 
will multiply upon us at every step in our progress ; 
the probability of the veracity of the witnesses and 
of the reality of the occurrences which they relate 
will increase until it acquires, for all practical pur- 
poses, the value and force of demonstration." 

Let us glance at some 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 95 

a. The Influence of the 
5. Corro orative Resurrection on the Disciples. 
Testimony r 1 1 

It must be sadly confessed that 

before the resurrection his disciples were anything' 
but ideal followers of their Master. They were 
slow to learn, and selfish; and in his hour of sore 
need one betrayed him and others forsook him and 
fled. And when he was crucified what would one 
naturally expect of them? Would we not expect 
them, crushed in spirit and disappointed in hope, 
to disperse and sink into oblivion, "leaving only 
the record of another prophet's failure to be 
reckoned with that of Theudas, and Judas of 
Galilee, and similar sporadic flashes of Jewish 
fanaticism"? But we find nothing" of the kind. 
Those arrant cowards became bold as lions, defying 
both the religious venom of the Jew and the polit- 
ical rage of the Roman. Their soul-vision is un- 
clouded, and their voices ring out, clear-toned like 
trumpets, as they proclaim the sweet story of their 
risen Lord. All this must be accounted for. Every 
effect has a cause, and this eflfect could "no more 
have risen out of nothing, or come about by chance, 
than our great modern railroad system could have 
arisen spontaneously in a land where iron was 
unknown, or have been developed without the brain 
of a Watt and the genius of a Stephenson." 

b. The Triumph of the Truth in the Face 
OF Opposition. Ballard forcefully says: "If we 
can imagine a lion, a tiger and a wolf uniting in 
desperate effort to destroy a lamb — and failing — we 
should but have a fair parallel to that which 



94 HOW TO BE SAVED 

actually happened in human society at the com- 
mencement of the Christian era. The practical alli- 
ance betwen Jewish hate, Roman might and Greek 
subtlety, against the infant Christian faith, is abso- 
lutely without parallel in history." But in the 
face of this mighty alliance, the new doctrine spread 
with wonderful rapidity. The first sermon gained 
three thousand converts; a second sermon, five 
thousand; and soon these converts were no longer 
counted, but referred to as multitudes, so that in 
the brief record of the Book of Acts not less than 
half a million Christians are made. And within 
twenty-five years after the crucifixion the unhesita- 
ting belief in the resurrection was established among 
all Christians throughout the then known world. 

Many of these converts were from the Jews, 
including priests, and other great men like Saul of 
Tarsus. And if the reader thinks men of this kind 
are easily converted, let him try to induce some 
modern rabbi to accept the Christ. 

And as to the persecutions encountered in this 
work, neither the language of men nor angels can 
do justice to their horror, or to the heroism of those 
who endured them. But a single quotation from 
Lecky must suffice: "We read of Christians bound 
in chains of red-hot iron, while the stench of the 
unconsumed bodies rose in a suffocating cloud to 
heaven; of others torn to the very bone by shells 
or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the 
lust of gladiators, or the mercies of the panderer; 
of two hundred and twenty-seven sent on one occa- 
sion to the mines, each with one leg severed by 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 95 

a hot iron, and an eye scooped from the socket; 
of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours 
in their agony; of tortures prolonged and varied 
through entire days. For the love of their divine 
Master, for the cause which they believed to be 
true, when one word would have freed them from 
their sufferings." 

c. The Lord's Supper. On the night of his 
betrayal the Saviour instituted this Supper (Matt. 
26:26-30), and from that day to this it has been 
observed wherever Christianity has gone. In fact, 
this institution has always been a part of the Chris- 
tian religion. It is a significant fact that wherever 
this bloodless feast has been spread, there bloody 
sacrifices have ceased, and the sense of sin has 
been greatly intensified. When the sun rises, even 
men put out the other lights; and so when the 
sacrifice of Calvary is made, all minor sacrifices are 
discontinued. 

What is the cause which produced this unique 
institution? It could not have been borrowed from 
Judaism, for it ignores the very heart of their 
mem.orial rite: the bloody sacrifice. It would also 
shock the Jews to have the Messiah represented in 
any sense as a sacrifice. Neither could it have 
come from Greek or Roman mythology, for there 
was nothing there to suggest it. And if Christ did 
not rise from the grave, the disciples would not 
observe it, for in that case it was the proclamation 
of a failure on the part of their Lord. But they 
did observe it, and wherever they went preaching 
"Jesus and the resurrection," this memorial feast 

7 



96 HOW TO BE SAVED 

was made a prominent part of the worship of the 
churches which they established. 

But the strangest thing is yet to be said; viz., 
that this custom arose on the very spot, and imme- 
diately following the time, of the crucifixion. 
Ebrard says that "in the whole sphere of criticism 
there is no absurdity more uncritical than the idea 
that a rite which universally prevailed should have 
grown up accidentally and gradually, especially a 
rite of such marked peculiarity." But if we accept 
the New Testament account of the origin, purpose 
and promulgation, then all is simple and reason- 
able. 

d. The Lord's Day. From the beginning (Gen. 
2:3) the Sabbath day was sacred. But it received 
an added sanctity when the Jews made it com- 
memorative of their deliverance from Egyptian 
bondage (Deut. 5:15). Men naturally love and 
venerate ancient customs, often simply because they 
are ancient. But this day is not only hoary with 
age, but it commemorated two of the grandest 
events in the history of the world; yet it gives 
place to the Lord's Day, and becomes commemora- 
tive of two grander events : the new creation in 
Christ, and deliverance from sin. And this monu- 
ment, like the Supper, began in Jerusalem, and just 
one week after the resurrection of the Christ. It 
would be absolutely impossible to induce the Ameri- 
can people to observe the fourth of June instead of 
the fourth of July in commemoration of the 
Declaration of Independence; and it would be 
equally impossible to induce them to so observe 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 97 

the fourth of July, if no such Declaration ever took 
place. Yet the best people of the world for nine- 
teen centuries have been observing the Lord's Day; 
have reared a monument in memory of an event 
which never occurred, if so be that Christ rose 
not. The tall white shaft, the highest monument 
in the world, which lifts its pinnacle into the clouds 
over Washington City, could never have been built 
if Washington had not been the savior of his 
people; neither could these two towering monu- 
ments, the Lord's Supper and the Lord's Day, have 
had their glorious history and sacred significance 
if Christ had not been "declared the Son of God 
with power by the resurrection from the dead" 
(Rom. 1:4). 

It is said that Charlemagne at his own request 
was buried in a sitting posture, clothed in royal 
purple and ermine, with his crown on his head and 
his scepter in his hand. Years afterward the tomb 
was opened, but, alas! little was left of his imperial 
glory. The crown had fallen from his bleached 
brow, the scepter lay in the dust at his feet, and 
his royal robes had rotted about him. Not so with 
King Jesus. God had said that his body should 
not be left in the grave, and the holy One should 
not see corruption; and so on the morning of the 
third day he burst the bars of the tomb and came 
forth, bringing life and immortality to light through 
the gospel; and now lives and reigns and rules as 
the Lord of lords and the King of kings. 



98 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Review. 

1. What is Paul's estimate of the resurrection? 

2. Name five conceded facts concerning the 
Christ. 

3. State the infidel position. 

4. What three motives were used to corrupt 
their witnesses? 

5. What story did these witnesses tell? 

6. What would have been the result if they 
had presented the body of Jesus? 

7. What is the Christian position? 

8. State the trilemma, and discuss it. 

9. What is the testimony of Greenleaf? 

10. State the four points of corroborative tes- 
timony. 



VI. 
FAITH 



99 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER VI. 

1. What Is Faith? 

2. How Is Faith Produced? 

3. The Scope of Faith. 

4. The Object of Faith. 



100 



VI. 

Faith. 

Having established beyond a doubt the divinity 
of Christ, we next examine in detail the steps lead- 
ing to salvation in him. We begin with the first 
step, faith. 

Paul answers this question as 
I. What Is Faith? ^^^^^^^. u^^^ f^i^h is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen" (Heb. 11:1). This passage has suffered 
much at the hands of the scholarship of the church, 
and, like the poor woman of whom the Saviour tells 
us, who had suffered much at the hands of the 
physicians, it is generally unimproved by their 
treatment. Some of them say that it is not a 
definition, but a description, of faith. But as a 
definition, though about four hundred years old, 
it is not the best, and yet is not bad. The word 
rendered "substance" means that which stands 
under a structure, as its support or foundation. 
Hence, faith is the foundation on which things we 
hope for stand. The evidence of things not seen 
is the assurance that such things do exist. As we 
look forward to the beautiful temple of Hope, 
secure from every storm, and backward through 
the dim and shadowy past and see it, though in- 
visible; or peer into the tangled present and behold 
God's hand leading and shielding at every step, we 

101 



102 HOW TO BE SAVED 

realize something of what faith is. It is the mighty 
prop on which the past, the present and the future 
all rest. 

But Edward Robinson's definition, in his great 
"Lexicon of the Greek New Testament," is better, 
and perhaps the best ever given. He says : "Faith 
is confidence as to things hoped for, conviction as 
to things not seen." According to this definition, 
faith has to do with two classes of things : things 
hoped for, and things unseen. As regards the 
unseen things, the word is wonderfully inclusive, 
and embraces everything in the past, the present 
and the future, of which we have no knowledge. 
Covering all such things, our faith is a "conviction," 
or assurance, that they do exist. As to the unseen 
things of the past we do not hope for them, but 
we do hope for many of the unseen things of the 
future. And when faith rests on these unseen 
objects of the future, then its second element is 
brought into action — confidence as to things hoped 
for. Aided by these two definitions, it would seem 
that we might have no doubt as to the correct 
meaning of this great word. 

On this subject there has been 
2. How Is Faith , , r i i. u- u ^t. 

P d d? much harmful teachmg by theo- 

logians. It has been taught that 
man, being totally depraved, has no ability to believe, 
and therefore must wait for God's good time, when, 
in some miraculous way, he will give him faith. He 
has been told that he is as dead spiritually as 
Lazarus was physically, and that he can no more 
exercise a moral faculty without special divine aid 



FAITH 103 

than Lazarus could rise from the grave without the 
almighty power of the Saviour. The impression 
has been made that God has, as it were, an immense 
storage-battery in the heavens, and when he wills 
he touches it and flashes faith into the hearts of 
men much as we shock them with electricity. And 
so they are taught to pray for it, and expect it 
to come to them directly and irresistibly. If this 
is true, there is no such thing as human respon- 
sibility, and God can not be just and condemn man 
for unbelief. 

But let us thank God that this baneful theory, 
now fast taking its flight from the haunts of men 
(Heaven hasten its going!), is false. If faith is 
the belief of testimony, then testimony must precede 
it, and man must possess the power to examine this 
testimony. The jury is not asked for a verdict 
without testimony. Their faith in the guilt or 
innocence of the prisoner comes not in some mys- 
terious and independent manner, but according to 
the laws of the mind. And if one has not the 
power to exercise these mental powers, he is not 
eligible to jury service, and neither is he amenable 
to law. This is the clear, strong voice of reason; 
and, as is ever the case, it is in perfect accord with 
that of revelation. 

Our faith in God did not come in this way. It 
is not the result of agonizing anxiety; of anxious 
prayer by ourselves and others; of strange dreams, 
visions or fleshly sensations, or anything of the kind. 
But when we were little children our mothers, in 
answer to our curious questions as to who made 



104 HOW TO BE SAVED 

the sun and moon and stars and mountains and seas, 
opened the old family Bible and read its first verse 
to us: "In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." And so it came from God's word. 
And our faith in Jesus came in the same way. 
These mothers read to us the story of his birth, 
his life, his death and his resurrection in the old 
Book, and we believed it. 

Let us, therefore, have a few Scriptures in 
proof of this declaration. 

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also who shall believe on me through their word" 
(John 17:20). The Saviour had been praying for 
his disciples, and now his great, loving heart looks 
forward and embraces the vast army of believers 
yet to come, who would believe on him through 
their word. And if our faith come not through 
their word — the gospel — we are not included in 
that prayer. 

"Many other signs truly did Jesus, which are 
not written in this book, but these are written that 
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that believing ye might have life through 
his name" (John 20:30, 31). From this fine 
passage we get three important points: (a) Faith 
comes by hearing the gospel; {b) we are not to 
believe in dogmas, theories, speculations of men, 
etc., but in Christ; (c) the purpose of this faith 
is to give us life. 

"Peter rose up and said, Men and brethren, ye 
know that a good while ago God made choice among 
us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the 



FAITH 103 

word of the gospel, and believe'^ (Acts 15:7). 
Language could not be clearer than this. If God 
chose that the Gentiles should hear the gospel and 
believe, then we should not expect faith independ- 
ent of the gospel. But this Scripture is specially 
important because it is a part of the account of the 
conversion of Cornelius and his household, where 
there was a supernatural outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit. But Peter teaches that their faith was not 
the result of this miraculous gift of the Spirit, but 
of the Word which he preached to them. 

"These were more noble than those in Thes- 
salonica, in that they received the word with all 
readiness of mind, searching the scriptures daily, 
whether these things were so. Therefore many of 
them believed" (Acts 17:11, 12). The Thessalo- 
nians rejected the truth, and organized a rough 
mob to resist it. But the Bereans "received the 
word with all readiness of mind" ; and they searched 
the Scriptures like miners search for gold; and 
this they did daily, giving it a continuous hearing. 
"Therefore many of them believed." Here we see 
the sure highways of faith: an honest heart, a can- 
did hearing, and a searching investigation. 

"So, then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing 
by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). This is so 
plain that it is hazardous to try to make it plainer. 
If it said that faith comes by feeling, or by the 
direct operation of the Spirit, we would so teach. 
But it says it comes by hearing the word of God, 
and this is the end of controversy to the man who 
believes. 



106 HOW TO BE SAVED 

It stretches from the cradle 
p . , to the grave, and is present at 

almost every step in the pilgrim- 
age from the one to the other. It enlarges the 
horizon of the senses. If we were confined to the 
sphere of these, how circumscribed life would be. 
It would not be as broad as that of the animals 
about us, for their instincts are stronger than ours. 
But we can believe. In infancy, as we begin life's 
journey, it is by faith. Having little instinct, and 
no reason or experience, our only guide is faith 
in mother. She must teach us about nature and her 
stern laws — how fire will burn, water will drown, 
knives will cut, and poison will kill. And when 
we enter the schoolroom, faith in the teacher is our 
guide. But for this we could not learn the alphabet 
and multiplication table, and would never know the 
joys of literary life or experience the science of 
numbers. All the wealth of history, the beauty of 
the classics, and the heights and depths of philoso- 
phy would forever remain veiled to us. And in 
business life faith in our fellow-man is guide. It 
is the working principle in commercial life. The 
difference between the merchant prince and the 
petty ,trader is that one can go only so far as he 
can see, and the other sweeps out far beyond the 
boundaries of sight and sense and takes into 
account the relations of things, time, space, quality, 
quantity, seasons, races, latitudes. In a word, he 
makes the whole world contribute to his success. 
Ninety-nine per cent, of modern business is done 
through checks. We buy goods we have never seen, 



FAITH 107 

and sell them to men who are strangers to us. 

In every bill of goods we buy, and in every draft 
we draw, we have to trust some one. If faith in 
the commercial world should be destroyed to-day, 
the wheels of traffic would stop and there would be 
universal bankruptcy in less than a year. It is 
the mutual faith of husband and wife that makes 
home possible. Cut the faith principle, and the 
home, and all society, would fall to pieces like 
beads when the string is broken. And but for 
faith, the state could not stand, and the nation 
would fall. Faith, therefore, is not an arbitrary 
thing, but it is rather that which restores man to 
the state of his primitive integrity. 

But its scope includes much more than the prac- 
tical things of every-day life. It is so vast that it 
almost staggers us when we contemplate it. With 
F. D. Power we can say: "Wider than the earth, 
broader than the sea, longer than all time, stretching 
into the eternal past and down through the eternal 
future, is the area of faith. By this we live in 
every age and clime, hold converse with men of 
every nation, and become contemporary with all 
generations. By this we know how worlds were 
made; how man came into being under the hand of 
his Maker; how the patriarchs, fathers and proph- 
ets lived and loved and suffered and died; how 
Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, taught, worked 
miracles, gave himself on the cross, came forth from 
the tomb, and ascended; how the gospel was 
preached, and men believed, repented and obeyed. 
Further, by faith we get the vision of unborn ages, 



108 HOW TO BE SAVED 

the ransomed coming to Zion with songs and ever- 
lasting joy on their heads, the new heavens and 
the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
*Faith is the evidence of things not seen.' Well 
does Toplady call it the *eye of the soul.' For, as 
we stand by the deep chasm called the grave, it 
bridges it, and in an instant we are in the land 
where there are no graves, and the loved one is 
ours once more. The astronomer from the ob- 
servatory in his home looks into the upper depths 
and sees thousands of shining worlds. He climbs 
the mountain-top, and the number is multiplied. 
Still unsatisfied, he goes into the world's greatest 
observatory, and with its most powerful glass looks 
again and finds them multiplied almost infinitely. 
But has he seen all? No. But here he must stop, 
not for want of worlds to see, but for lack of vision 
to see them. But not so the Christian. When the 
eye of sense fails him, by the lens of faith he 
looks into the invisible things of God and revels 
in the glory of heaven. Faith is glorified reason; 
the imagination in its luminous hours." 

What we believe is far more 
** ^p .^^ important than how we believe. 

The pipe through which the water 
is brought is important, but not so much so as the 
fountain from which it comes. If the fountain be 
pure, then health and happiness are produced, but, 
if impure, disease and death. It is not strange, 
therefore, that the Bible holds up Jesus as the 
object of faith. "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32). 



FAITH 109 

"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing Hfe" (John 3:14-16). "Let all the house of 
Israel know assuredly that God hath made that 
same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and 
Christ" (Acts 2:36). "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" 
(Acts 16:31). 

Man loves the concrete rather than the abstract, 
and he is never so strong as when the guiding prin- 
ciple of his life is embodied in a mighty personal- 
ity. See this exemplified in the heroes who followed 
Wellington and Napoleon, and Lee and Grant, to 
danger and death rather than desert their leaders. 
By nature we are hero-worshipers. Doctrine, even 
though it come from God, and principles, though 
born in heaven, are never at their best until asso- 
ciated with a magnetic leader. This is why the 
Father has put everything spiritual in the Christ, so 
that Christ is Christianity and Christianity is Christ. 
"In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily, and ye are complete in him who is the head 
of all principality and power" (Col. 2:9, 10). And 
this is why the apostles in their preaching would 
know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
And this is why the church under their ministry 
swept over Europe and Asia like an army with 
banners. And this is why our preaching has been 



lie HOW TO BE SAVED 

so blessed of God. We have held up Christ instead 
of dogma, and preached the gospel rather than the 
philosophies, speculations and traditions of men. 

Radium, the new substance now so much dis- 
cussed in the scientific world, gives off light with- 
out heat, and thus symbolizes intellectual faith. 
There is often cold intellectuality without warmth, 
love or spiritual life. Light and heat should be 
combined. The pulpit and the pen should be knowl- 
edge aflame with love. 

The faith that saves is not simply a mental assent. 
Paul once so preached before Felix that he trem- 
bled, but he was not saved. "The devils also believe 
and tremble," but they remain devils still. It must 
be a faith that leads to penitence, obedience, and a 
new life in the Saviour. As the sick man puts him- 
self unreservedly in the hands of the physician, 
ready to do what he commands and refrain from 
what he forbids, so must the sin-sick soul surrender 
to the great Physician, and all will be well. 

Review. 

1. Give two definitions of faith. 

2. How is faith produced? 

3. Give five Scriptures bearing on this ques- 
tion. 

4. What is the scope of faith? 

5. Who is the object of faith? 

6. Define the faith that saves. 

7. Describe faith in the every-day life. 

8. Describe faith in the hour of death. 



VII. 
REPENTANCE 



111 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER VII. 

1. What Is Repentance? 

a. Not Sorrow. 

b. Not Sorrow and Confession Com- 

bined. 

c. Not Godly Sorrow. 

d. Not Reformation. 

e. It Is Sorrow for Sin Resulting in 

Reformation. 

2. Why Should Men Repent? 

a. Because God Commands It. 

b. Because of God's Goodness. 

c. Because of God's Warnings. 

d. Because the Impure Can Not Enter 

Heaven. 

3. Fruits of Repentance. 

a. Confession of Sin. 

b. Prayer for Forgiveness. 

c. Restitution. 

d. New Life. 



112 



VII. 

Repentance. 

Repentance, the second step on the way to par- 
don, has a prominent place in the gospel of the Sa- 
viour. It has been called the goddess of the erring, 
whose tearful voice is ever whispering: Salvation 
from sin, not in sin. And while we are struggling 
to answer this voice, we behold heaven, but we feel 
hell. Nothing is more difficult than true repentance. 
It is not so difficult to get men to believe. The 
testimony is so simple and strong that it convinces 
the honest and intelligent hearer in almost every 
case. Neither is it difficult to get the penitent 
believer to be baptized. When he fully surrenders 
to the Lord, he is anxious thus publicly to show 
his faith in him. The real difficulty is with 
repentance. It is no easy matter to induce the 
will, especially when it is in the wrong, to change. 
Sin so blinds the eye that it sees but dimly, and so 
muffles the ear that it hears imperfectly, and it so 
paralyzes the will that, like a palsied arm, it seems 
unable to act. Hence the power to so teach and 
preach as to make men repent is the power for 
which the teacher and preacher ought always to 
pray. But when we do repent, the reward is so 
rich that we forget the rough way over which we 
have had to travel, and the bitter cups we have had 

to drink, for it is our second innocence. 

113 



114 HOW TO BE SAVED 

a. It Is Not Sorrow. Many 

* , , emotional people seem to think 

Repentance? , . 

that when the heart is convulsed 

and the tears flow freely, they have repented. But 
this is not necessarily true. Such emotions may be 
connected with genuine repentance, and they may 
not. Some men exercise repentance and never 
weep, and some weep and never repent. Sorrow 
is an essential element of repentance, but in itself 
it is not repentance. The alphabet is an essen- 
tial part of an education, but he who only knows 
these twenty-six characters when he sees them, 
but does not know how to combine them into 
words and sentences, is not educated. Herod (Matt. 
14: 1-11) made a hasty and wicked promise to 
the daughter of Herodias, and when he found 
that it involved the head of John the Baptist, 
he was "sorry." But he did not repent, but went 
forth in spite of his sorrow, and became a murderer 
in the sight of God and men. 

b. It Is Not Sorrow and Confession Com- 
bined. The sorrow of Judas so wrought upon him 
that he "brought again the thirty pieces of silver 
to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned 
in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Matt. 
27:3, 4) ; but he did not repent. Instead, he "de- 
parted, and went and hanged himself." Here is 
confession coupled with sorrow, and still no repent- 
ance. Solomon says: "He that covereth his sins 
shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and for- 
saketh them shall have mercy" (Prov. 28:13). 

Judas uncovered his sins, but he did not forsake 



REPENTANCE 115 

them. His was remorse rather than repentance. 

c. It Is Not Godly Sorrow. "Now I rejoice, 
not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed 
to repentance; for ye were made sorry after a god- 
ly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in 
nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to 
salvation not to be repented of ; but the sorrow of 
the world worketh death" (2 Cor. 7:9, 10). If 
godly sorrow worketh repentance, it is not itself 
repentance, but its cause, and sustains to repentance 
the relationship of cause to effect. 

d. It Is Not Reformation. There can be no 
repentance without reformation, but there m^ay be 
reformation without repentance. A wicked and 
worthless young man might find his evil ways the 
only objection urged by the parents against his mar- 
riage to their daughter, and there might be tem- 
porary reformation in order to overcome this objec- 
tion, but no repentance. In his case there would 
be no sorrow for sin — that sorrow that worketh 
repentance to salvation. 

e. What, Then_, Is Repentance? If it is not 
sorrow; if it is not sorrow coupled with confession; 
if it is not godly sorrow; and if it is not reforma- 
tion, what is it? It is sorrow for sin resulting in 
reformation of life; it is ceasing to do evil and 
learning to do well (Isa. 1:16, 17). 

Let us see this definition in the light of two 
illustrations. The Ninevites were a wicked people, 
and God sent Jonah to preach to them. They heard 
him; they believed what he preached; they humbled 
themselves in the dust, fasted and put on sackcloth; 



116 HOW TO BE SAVED 

and they turned from their sins, and God forgave 
them (Matt. 12:41; Jonah 3:1-10). 

The story of the prodigal son also is a lucid illus- 
tration. He left home and "spent his substance in 
riotous living"; he came down to wretchedness and 
want, and, while sorrowing over his sin, he deter- 
mined to arise and go to his father and -say unto 
him: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. 
. . . And he arose and went" (Luke 15:11-24). 
His sorrow led to penitence, and his penitence 
ripened into reformation, and he was saved. 

That the reader may know that this conclusion 
is in harmony with the best scholarship, we will 
hear Isaac Errett : "The Greek word translated 
'repentance' indicates change — conversion. It im- 
parts change of mind or disposition, and that, too, 
for the better. We have, indeed, more than one 
Greek word translated by this term 'repentance.* 
One of them indicates a change, whether for better 
or worse. But that word, expressing the will of 
God concerning us, uniformly in the New Testament 
denotes a change for the better. We are sometimes 
asked what is the difference between faith and 
repentance, since they are both expressive of 
change? We reply that the idea of change is not 
contained in the word 'faith,' although it usually 
implies a change; it is rather expressive of rest, of 
trust, of simple confidence. But the word 'repent- 
ance' is expressive of change. Faith respects that 
which is true ; repentance, that which is right. Faith 



REPENTANCE 117 

looks away from falsehood and error to the truth; 
repentance looks away from sin to righteousness 
and holiness." 

a. Because Gk)D Commands 
2 Why Men j^ ,,j^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ignorance 
Should Repent ^ , . , , , 

God wmked at; but now com- 

mandeth all men every where to repent" (Acts 17: 
30). There is but one safe thing to do with a 
commandment of God, and that is to obey it. It 
must not be resisted, ignored, neglected or trifled 
with. It is Jehovah who commands, and all his 
commandments are righteous, and he has the power 
to punish disobedience. 

b. Because o? God's Goodness. "Despisest thou 
the riches of his goodness and forbearance and 
longsuff ering ; not knowing that the goodness of 
God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Rom. 2:4). 
God is not only a King to command, and a Judge 
to inflict the penalty of disobedience, but he is a 
loving Father; yea, more, he is father and mother 
in one (Isa. 66:13), and his "goodness and for- 
bearance and longsuffering" will be extended to all. 
Beecher says: "When a man undertakes to repent 
toward his fellow-man, it is repenting straight up a 
precipice; when he repents toward lav/, it is repent- 
ing in the crocodile's jaws; when he repents toward 
public sentiment, it is throwing himself into a 
thicket of brambles and thorns ; and when he repents 
towards God, he repents toward all love and deli- 
cacy. God receives the soul as the sea the bather, 
to return it again, purer and whiter than he took 
it." 



118 HOW TO BE SAVED 

c. Because of God's Warnings. "Suppose ye 
that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the 
Galilseans, because they suffered such things? I 
tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all 
likewise perish" (Luke 13:2, 3). All have sinned, 
and, therefore, all must repent. The king on his 
throne, the beggar at his gate, the mother and her 
child, the father and his son, the murderer, the 
slanderer, the pirate, the respectable, the poor wretch 
covered with crime — all have sinned and come short 
of the glory of God. But he warns all, and if we 
will hear and heed, he forgives; if not, we perish. 
Men often in hot passion punish, and then warn. 
In the home — how sad that it is so — the parent's 
blow is frequently first and the word of warning 
follows. This is the rule with despots and tyrants, 
especially when the rebellious subject is weak. They 
crush him first and reason with him later. There is 
no previous warning and no time for repentance. 
Not so Vv^ith our God. He will not cut down the 
fruitless tree that cumbereth the ground, until it 
has been dug about and dunged (Luke 13 : 8) ; he 
will not drown a wicked world until it is fully 
warned of the impending doom; Sodom shall not 
perish until righteous Lot has lived within her 
borders; Nineveh shall not fall until Jonah has 
preached in her streets; Babylon shall not be 
crushed till Daniel has lived in her midst; and Jeru- 
salem shall not be ground under the tyrant's heel 
until she has received a thousand warnings. How 
many warnings from the Bible, from the pulpit and 
press, from sickness and sorrow, and from in- 



REPENTANCE 119 

numerable other sources, have been received by 
all, and how shall we escape if we heed them not? 
d. Because the Impure Can Not Enter 
Heaven. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the 
Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He 
that hath clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24: 
3, 4) ; "Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall 
see [enjoy] God" (Matt. 5:8). Heaven is a place 
of purity, and none but the pure can be happy 
there. H the ignorant are ill at ease among the 
learned, and the coarse among the refined, how 
could the sinner, unforgiven, be happy among the 
redeemed? If by almighty power the Lord should 
suddenly transfer the profligate, the blasphemer and 
the drunkard to heaven without repentance, heaven 
would be hell to them, and they would struggle 
to escape from its pure atmosphere. As the dis- 
eased eye is pained by the light, so the impure in 
heart would flee from God. Heaven is a prepared 
place for a prepared people. 

John, evidently with doubt in 

iy ^ \ ^ his mind as to the purity of pur- 

Repentance f J f 

pose of some who came to be 
baptized, called upon them to "bring forth fruits 
meet for repentance" (Matt. 3:8). This was right; 
for genuine repentance, like a good tree, will always 
bear good fruit. What are some of these fruits? 

a. Confessing Sin. "Wash me thoroughly from 
mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin; for 
I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is 
ever before me" (Ps. 51:3, 4). "If we confess 
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our 



120 HOW TO BE SAVED 

sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" 
(1 John 1:9). "Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy 
to be called thy son" (Luke 15:21). Every one 
who truly repents is anxious to imitate the penitent 
prodigal and seek forgiveness in humble confession 
of sin. Until we are willing to do this, it is clear 
that we do not appreciate the heinous character of 
sin. 

b. Prayer for Forgiveness. "And the publican, 
standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his 
eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, 
God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13). 
The sight of sin always brings the soul to its knees. 
When a child which loves its mother discovers that 
it has broken her commandments and grieved her 
heart, it instinctively seeks her presence and prays 
her forgiveness. And how can the mother heart 
refuse? It is said of the big-hearted Lincoln that 
he issued standing orders for the admission of 
every messenger who sought his aid in saving a 
life. However great the throng who waited on 
him, such a messenger was admitted first. And 
regardless of the standing of those who sought an 
audience — though they were Senators, Congressmen, 
Cabinet officers, foreign representatives, and mil- 
lionaires — all had to wait on him who sought the 
life of some condemned man. "If ye then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your chil- 
dren, how much more shall your Father which is 
in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him?" 
(Matt. 7:11). 



REPENTANCE 121 

c. Restitution. No amount of profession and 
emotion and agony will avail without restitution, 
provided restitution be within our power. In Matt. 
5:23, 24 the Saviour teaches that we are to right 
our wrongs against man before we offer sacrifice 
to God: "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the 
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath 
aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the 
altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy 
brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Sin- 
offerings without repentance are worthless, but not 
more so than repentance without sin-offerings. 
When we sin against man we sin against God, and 
we must first be reconciled to man before God will 
hear us. A man sins against the child of his neigh- 
bor. How can the matter be adjusted ? He must first 
undo the wrong to the child before he can expect 
the forgiveness of the father. And man is God's 
child. The liar, therefore, must confess and cor- 
rect his falsehood, the thief must restore the stolen 
goods, the fraudulent man must disgorge, and the 
hypocrite must reform, before we may expect the 
forgiveness of the Father. Let Zacchaeus be our 
example (Luke 19:8). 

d. A New Life. "Therefore if any man be in 
Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed 
away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 
5: 17). Repentance is often shallow and inadequate. 
It is like that of the little girl who was punished 
for her naughtiness. At night, before being tucked 
away in bed, she prayed to God : "O God, please 
make me good, not real good, but just good enough 



122 HOW TO BE SAVED 

so I won't have to be whipped." F. D. Power puts 
this point most forcibly : "There must be a godly 
walk and conversation. The man who formerly 
was a liar will now be known far and wide as a 
truthful man. The man given to dishonest prac- 
tices will now show himself upright and reliable in 
all his transactions. The man v/ho aforetime was 
profane, impious, unjust, inhuman, given to ungod- 
liness and worldly lust, now lives soberly, right- 
eously and godly. The man who once, like the 
prodigal, reveled in impurity and drunkenness, is 
now proving himself chaste and temperate. The 
soul that cared formerly only for the mad whirl of 
pleasure and worldliness finds delight now in things 
spiritual and divine. The world sees the reforma- 
tion is genuine." Thus may we rise on stepping- 
stones of our dead selves to higher and holier 
things. And in this there is nothing base nor bitter. 
It is only good rising out of evil. It is the resurrec- 
tion of purity from the grave of lust. It is dark- 
ness fleeing before the dawn. It is weakness cloth- 
ing itself with the strength of Jehovah. It is the 
prisoner, freed from shackles, bolts and bars, step- 
ping forth a free man. As the water-lily, white and 
pure, and admired by all, rises from the black filth 
of the lake or bog, so the sweet flower of repent- 
ance springs from the bitter pangs of remembered 
wrongs, and "is only the soul blossoming back to 
its better nature." 

Beecher puts the case forcefully and beautifully : 
"Men look upon repentance and humiliation before 
God very much as they do upon a voyage to the 



REPENTANCE 123 

North Pole. Every single league, as they advance 
toward the Arctic region, they leave more and more 
behind them greenness, and fruits and warmth, and 
civilization, and find themselves more and more in 
the midst of sterility, barrenness, ice and barbarism. 
Men think that to go to God is dreary and desolate 
in the extreme. It is not! The sinner is the 
Esquimaux! He lives in ice and burrows under- 
ground, and is but little better than a beast. But 
if by any means he becomes fired with a conception 
of a better clime, and, leaving his hibernating quar* 
ters, he takes the ship of Repentance and sails 
toward the Torrid Zone, at every leagU3 he is sur- 
prised by the new forms of vegetation. He has 
seen oak-trees only about as high as his knee. Not 
long after he sets out on his voyage, he is aston- 
ished to see them as high as his head. As he draws 
near the tropics, he is lost in wonder and ecstasy to 
see them lifting themselves far above him in the 
air. And with what satisfaction does he compare 
the delightful home he has found with the miser- 
able one he left." 

Review. 

1. Is it difficult to exercise true repentance? 

2. Define repentance. 

3. Give two Bible examples of repentance. 

4. What does Errett say as to the words "re- 
pentance" and "faith"? 

5. Give four reasons why we should repent. 

6. State four fruits of repentance. 

7. Quote Power on the subject. 

8. Give Beecher's illustration. 



VIII. 
CONVERSION 



125 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER VIII. 

1. Clearing the Ground. 

a. All Hear, but All Are Not Saved. 

b. Men Dead in Sin Can Not Act of 

Themselves. 

c. A Bible Example. 

2. Filing Objections. 

a. It Turns Attention from the Gos- 

pel. 

b. It Destroys Human Responsibility. 

c. It Makes God a Cruel Monster. 

d. It Makes Infidels. 

3. What Is Conversion? 

4. Aim and End of Conversion. 



126 



VIII. 

Conversion. 

But for the confusion and uncertainty created 
by the theologians, the searcher after truth, with 
his heart purified by faith and his life purified by 
repentance, would at once be baptized and enter 
fully into the Christian life. But the air is full 
of questions about conversion, change of heart, and 
the like, and he is afraid that he is not fit for 
baptism; and so postpones it for the present, that 
he may look into these questions. He begins with 
the study of conversion. 

This is a question of the greatest possible impor- 
tance to every one, and it should be carefully 
studied. 

But, in order to such study, 

eari g c gome difficulties must be removed. 
Ground _ . , . . , , 

Durmg the time of the apostles, 

and for two hundred years later, these difficulties 
did not exist. The gospel, as "the power of God 
unto salvation" (Rom. 1:16), was preached and 
men were saved. Near the close of the fourth 
century Satan sowed the seed of speculative theol- 
ogy, and the trouble began. Augustine espoused 
it, and it soon became a power for evil. He taught 
that, because of the fall of Adam, all, even infants, 
were so depraved as to destroy the human will 
and leave them the helpless servants of sin. This 

9 127 



128 HOW TO BE SAVED 

being true, conversion was necessarily miraculous, 
God's power in it being irresistible, and this power 
was exerted only on the elect. At first thought it 
seems incredible that such a theory could be 
accepted by any one. But many like the mys- 
terious, especially in religion. Enshroud a subject 
in fog, and let it stand like a mountain wrapped 
in mist, half revealed and half concealed, and 
their imaginations are impressed, and the heart is 
filled with holy (?) awe. Then the priest has his 
feast. 

a. All Men Hear the Gospel, but All Are 
Not Saved; Hence This Miraculous Power Is 
Exerted in Behalf o? Some, and Withheld 
FROM Others. The Saviour, in the parable of the 
sower (Matt. 13:1-9, 18-23), fully explains this 
matter. Some seed fell on the wayside, some on 
stony ground, some among thorns, and some on 
good ground. In some cases there was no fruit, 
in others it was slight, and in the last an abundant 
harvest. This was not because a miraculous power 
was sometimes exerted, and sometimes withheld, 
but because of variety in soil and circumstances. 
The seed, which is the word of God (Luke 8: 11), 
was the same in each case, but the soil, which is 
the human heart, was not. This explanation, sim- 
ple, sound and philosophical, should commend itself 
to all. 

b. Sinners Are Dead in Sin, and, Being 
Dead, It Requires AIiraculous Power to Bring 
Them Back to Life. "How shall we that are 
dead to sin live any longer therein?" (Eph. 2:1). 



CONVERSION 129 

Here the two words "dead" and "live" are applied 
to the same individual, showing that he was dead 
in one sense and alive in another. If, then, when 
Christians are dead "to" sin, they are able still 
to do wrong, sinners, when dead "in" sin, are 
able to do right. To interpret these and kindred 
passages so as to teach that one is so dead that 
he can not hear, understand or obey the gospel is 
to treat a figure of rhetoric as if it were a literal 
statement of truth. Let us see the absurdity of 
this in another Pauline passage: "Awake thou that 
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
give thee light" (Eph. 5:14). Death here is not 
absolute, and does not imply that the dead are 
unable to hear the cry, to awake, or to rise from 
the dead. The fact is that total depravity, except 
in rare cases (Eph. 4:19), is a myth of man's 
theology, and not the teaching of the Bible. "Evil 
men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, 
deceiving and being deceived" (2 Tim. 3:13). If 
men are totally depraved, it is impossible for them 
to wax worse. We all possess both good and evil 
(Rom. 7:21-23), and salvation is the development 
of the good, and damnation is the development of 
the evil. None are so good but that they may be- 
come better, and few are so bad that they may not 
become worse. 

c. A Bible Example. The case of Lydia (Acts 
16: 14, 15) is confidently relied on as proof of this 
theory. Luke says that Paul preached to her, and 
that the Lord "opened" her heart, which is regarded 
as proof that it was so bad that miraculous power 



130 HOW TO BE SAVED 

was essential to her conversion. But this is a 
slander on a good woman, for there is no proof 
that her heart was so bad that it conld not be opened 
by ordinary means. Here is another example of 
figurative speech. The word "heart" is compared 
to something narrow or contracted, cr closed up 
entirely, and needed to be expanded or opened. 
The trouble with Lydia's heart was not that she 
was totally depraved — far from it — but as a 
Jewish worshiper she believed that the Messiah 
would restore the old Davidic throne, and bring 
back the lost glory of the children of Abraham. She 
had no conception of the world-wideness of his 
mission. Thus was her heart contracted, and it 
needed opening. Imagine a close-fisted, stingy man, 
able but unwilling to give of his means. But on 
a certain occasion a preacher makes an appeal for 
a worthy cause, and it reaches his contracted heart 
and expands it so that he responds liberally. In 
this case it might be said that his heart was opened 
by the preacher. But surely it would not be 
claimed that a miracle was wrought. None was 
needed. The truth only entered, and the heart was 
expanded and the purse was opened. Even so 
when the gospel — a gospel not for the Jew only, 
but for all men — entered Lydia's heart, it was 
opened as was the heart of Peter in the house of 
Cornelius, and she received it with joy. 

Let us note a few of the elements of this 
woman's character, and see that it was not bad: 
She was, like Cornelius, a worshiper of God, and 
his prayers and alms were acceptable to God. 



CONVERSION 131 

When called away from home she took her religion 
with her — a mighty proof of its genuineness. She 
closed her store on the Sabbath day, regardless of 
the fact that her rivals kept theirs open — another 
weighty proof of genuine conviction. Though her 
people seemed too poor to have a fashionable place 
of worship, she was not ashamed of them, but wor- 
shiped God with them in an open-air meeting by 
the river-side. And though they seemed not to 
have a man among them, she was loyal to her God. 
Do these facts indicate a bad woman? If you know 
one such to-day, do you not point to her as a 
model Christian? 

But, being a Jewish worshiper, her heart was 
narrow. It was contracted by the prejudices of 
that bigoted people. But, being an honest heart, it 
received the large, new truth which Paul preached, 
and thus it was "opened," expanded, enlarged, just 
as multitudes of similar hearts are being opened 
every day. The gospel in such a heart is like the 
sun on a rosebud. It opens it, and enlarges and 
beautifies it, and causes it to send forth its sweet 
incense into the world. No miracle is necessary. 
Nature's laws are all that is needed. 

Having removed the main 
props under this theory, we next 
consider some serious objections 
to it. 

a. It Turns Attention Away from the Gos- 
pel. *T am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, 
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every 
one that believeth" (Rom. 1: 16). If the gospel is 



132 HOW TO BE SAVED 

God's power to save, any theory of conversion 
which turns the attention of the unsaved away from 
it, is false. This theory does so teach, and hence 
it is false. God uses no superfluous means. If one 
life-boat will save, why send two? If the gospel 
is "the power of God unto salvation," why another 
power? Note the fact that it is not a power — one 
of two, or many powers — but it is the power : 
the one sole and all-sufficient power to save. 

b. It Destroys Human Responsibility. If 
miracle is essential to conversion, and if God only 
can work miracles, then man is not responsible for 
his sin. "Trust God and keep your power dry," 
said Cromwell; not, "Trust God to keep your 
powder dry." 

c. It ]\Iakes God a Cruel IMonster. The Bible 
teaches that he is our Father, and that he loves 
us with an infinite love. But this theory makes him 
a heartless monster, cruel and arbitrary. He tan- 
talizes all with the offer of salvation, but refuses 
to exert the necessary power in the case of many, 
and thus mocks them in their misery, and trifles 
with them when the soul's eternal interests are in- 
volved. If you, a father, had two boys, weary 
and hungry, would you spread a tempting feast 
before them, knowing that they could not reach 
it without special help from you, and yet extend 
the help to one and withhold it from the other? If 
so, you are a merciless monster, and deserve,- as 
you would receive, the execration of all men. Any 
theory which so represents God, must be wrong. 

d. It Makes Infidels. Thoughtful people, seek- 



CONVERSION 133 

ing salvation, hear such preaching, turn from it 
with instinctive disgust, and say that it can not 
be the teaching of a just and loving God, and, 
knowing nothing better, they drift out into the cold 
sea of infidelity. Thousands of this class, many of 
them the brainiest and best, are in our midst to-day. 
Many of them do not turn from God at once, but 
go to the mourners' bench, and wait and watch 
and pray for this special power. It does not come, 
and they finally turn back to their former lives with 
the deepest conviction that the whole thing is a 
farce, or that God is a respecter of persons. I speak 
both from wide observation and painful experience. 
We are now ready to raise the question: 

Conversion is turninsf. A 

3. What Is Con- , , i- ..t, ^ t, • 

. , traveler discovers that he is on 

version? 

the wrong road. He halts, turns 
about, and changes his course. So, the sinner, dis- 
covering that he is on the road to ruin, pauses, faces 
about and begins his march over the narrow road 
which leads to life. Moody's definition is good: 
"Halt! Right about face! Forward, march!" But 
the Saviour's is better: The story of the prodigal 
son. He is plunging downward to death. The 
heavy hand of affliction is laid upon him. He 
pauses, realizes his deep degradation, repents, 
resolves to do better, and at once puts his resolu- 
tion into effect, and returns to his father and is 
forgiven. 

The three thousand Jews at Pentecost, with 
hands stained in the blood of the Saviour, are 
arrested by Peter's sermon. They see their awful 



134 HOW TO BE SAVED 

guilt, and cry out for help. The preacher tells 
them what to do. And the same day they change 
their course and enter the kingdom of God. Paul, 
breathing out threatenings and slaughter against 
the disciples of Christ, and having destroyed the 
church in Jerusalem, and about to repeat this de- 
struction in Damascus, is arrested in his mad career, 
and made to see his sin; when suddenly his mighty 
life, with its measureless influence, is given to God. 
And so of the eunuch, Lydia, the jailer, and mul- 
titudes of others in the Book of Acts; they hear, 
they halt, they turn about, are converted and saved. 
Could anything be simpler? Can not a child 
understand it ? Why, then, so much confusion about 
it? There can be but one answer: it is because of 
the mist and fog with which the speculative theo- 
logians have surrounded it. Brush this away by 
the breath of the pure gospel, and there is not a 
responsible mortal beneath the stars who can not 
understand it. 

In the process of conversion let it never be 
forgotten that man, of his own accord, does the 
turning. He is not a machine, turned to the right 
or left, and driven backward or forward, by some 
power other than his own ; but he is a man in 
the image of God and endowed with the power of 
choice, and he turns to the right or left, and moves 
forward or backward, according to his own volition. 
So fearfully and wonderfully made is he that he 
can look up into the face of God and say, "I will" 
or "I will not," and Jehovah respects his decision. 
His heart is his castle, and no man, and no angel. 



CONVERSION 135 

and not even his Maker, has the right to enter 
without his permission. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them 
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not!" (Matt. 23:37). "Behold, I stand at the 
door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and 
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup 
with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20). He was 
active in his degeneration, and he must be active 
in his regeneration. Of his own will he turned 
away from God, and of his own will he must come 
back to him. 

Proof of this proposition is found in the fact 
that the original for "conversion" occurs in the 
New Testament thirty-nine times, and in every case 
except one (the Revised Version) the ripe product 
of the scholarship of both the Old and New 
Worlds renders it "turn" (active) and not "be 
turned" (passive). The same verb, without the 
preposition, occurs eighteen times, and in every 
case it is active. Is it not time that we drop the 
old and false phrase "be converted," and take up 
the new and true one, "turn"? 

Every Bible conversion has in it three great 
changes — a change of heart, a change of life and 
a change of state. And God has provided three 
agencies to produce these changes. Faith changes 
the heart, repentance changes the life, and baptism 
changes the state or relationship. This order can 
not be reversed. 



136 HOW TO BE SAVED 

The state can not be changed first, and then the 
life and heart. The heart is the beginning-place. 

There can be no repentance, or change in life, 
until we believe we have done wrong. And when 
we do so believe, the repentance naturally follows. 
And after the change in heart and life, and never 
before, are we to be baptized, which changes the 
relationship. The marriage ceremony illustrates 
this well. In every true marriage these three 
distinct steps take place. Faith, ripening into loving 
confidence and trust, changes the hearts. Their 
lives are changed, not by repentance, it is true, but 
they are changed. Their conduct toward each other, 
and toward others, is not what it once was ; and yet 
they are not married. But when the marriage 
ceremony is performed, their relationship is changed. 
Before the ceremony, despite the changes already 
experienced, they were in the single state, and after- 
ward they were in the married state. Baptism is 
the marriage ceremony by which the penitent soul 
is made part of the bride of Christ. 

"If any man be in Christ 
4. The Aim and Jesus, he is a new creature: old 

p . things are passed away; behold, 

all things are become new" (2 
Cor. 5 : 17) . The servant-girl, when asked for proof 
of her conversion, gave the true answer : *T now 
sweep under the rugs." Before her conversion she 
had been an "eye-servant," taking advantage of her 
mistress, but now she is honest. Her conversion 
did not impart any new faculties to the soul, for 
they were not needed; but it revolutionized her life 



CONVERSION 137 

by turning these faculties into a new channel. She 
thought, desired, loved and hated as before, but 
the subjects of her thought, desire, love and hatred 
are changed. Conversion is like refitting an old 
ship and employing it in the service of a new and 
better master. Christ takes possession of the ship 
and puts on a new pilot and new compass, and 
throws overboard everything that is evil, and fills 
her with a better cargo, and turns her toward 
heaven. It is the same ship, but her course is 
changed. 

Review. 

1. Was conversion a simple subject in New 
Testament times? 

2. How was it mystified? 

3. How answer the three arguments on de- 
pravity ? 

4. Name four objections to the theory. 

5. Define conversion, 

6. Is man active or passive in conversion? 

7. What three changes in conversion? 

8. What is the great purpose of conversion? 



IX. 

CHANGE OF HEART 



1S> 



OUTUNE— CHAPTER IX. 

1. What Is the Heart? 

a. It Believes. 

b. It Loves. 

c. It Wills. 

d. It Condemns. 

2. How Is the Heart Changed? 

a. The Intellect by Testimony. 

b. The Af ections by Loveliness. 

c. The Will by Motives. 

d. The Conscience by Right-doing. 

3. An Example. 



140 



I 



IX. 

Change of Heart. 

Perhaps there is no question connected with 
Christianity around which more mist is found than 
the question of '"change of heart"; and possibly 
not one of them so little deserves this misty environ- 
ment. 

Before inquiring how the 

'* TT^ ^f ^ heart is changed, let us know 
Heart? , . • t i i 

what it IS. it can not be the 

fleshly heart located in the left breast, for it is the 

same before and after conversion. It is no more 

changed than the hand or foot. 

Let us ascertain what the heart is, by what it 
does. If a man shoes horses, he is a blacksmith; 
if he sells goods, he is a merchant; if he practices 
law, he is a lawyer. Now, if we can find what 
the heart does, we can safely decide what the heart 
is. What does it do? The word "heart" occurs 
many times in the Bible, and yet all these passages 
are capable of a fourfold classification, showing 
that the heart does four things. 

a. It Believes. "For this people's heart is 
waxed gross, their ears are dull of hearing, and 
their eyes have they closed; lest they should see 
with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
should understand with their heart" (Matt. 13: 15). 
"And immediately when Jesus perceived in his 

141 



142 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he 
said unto them, Why reason ye these things in 
mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 
10: 10). These Scriptures teach that the heart 
understands, reasons and believes. Let us, for the 
present, separate these faculties from the will, the 
emotions, etc., and understand them to include 
simply the power to examine testimony and render 
verdicts. 

b. It Loves. "So Absalom stole the hearts of 
the men of Israel" (2 Sam. 15:6). By examining 
the context it will be seen that Absalom was a mod- 
ern-day politician. The handsome young prince, 
with "chariots" and horses, and "fifty men to run 
before him," was found on the highway pouring 
out sympathy for the "dear people" ; and when 
one came near to do him "obeisance, he put forth 
his hand, and kissed him." Thus he found their 
affections, or stole their hearts. "Master, which 
is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus 
said unto him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind" (Matt. 22:36). In this passage the 
heart is meant specially to include the affections. 

c. It Wills. "Nevertheless he that standeth 
stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath 
power over his own will, and hath so decreed in 
his own heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth 
well" (1 Cor. 7:37). "Every man according as 
he purposeth in his heart, so let him give ; not 
grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a 
cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7). Here it is seen that. 



CHANGE OF HEART 143 

in addition to faith and affections, the heart in- 
cludes the will. 

d. It Condemns. "Let us draw near with a 
true heart in full assurance of faith, having our 
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our 
bodies washed with pure water" (Heb. 10:22). 
"For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than 
our heart, and knoweth all things" ( 1 John 3 : 20) . 
A fourth element, the conscience, the power that 
condemns when we do wrong, is now added to the 
heart. 

Having now learned from the Book that the 

heart includes the intellect — the reasoning power; 

the affections — the power to love; the will — the 

great drive-wheels of humanity, and the conscience 

— the inner monitor, which cheers us when in the 

right, and chides us when in the wrong — we are 

able to decide as to what it is. It embraces the 

"inner man" — everything except the flesh and blood 

— and includes all that is immortal in man. It 

sweeps out natures from their loftiest heights to 

their deepest depths, and includes the whole of the 

spiritual in its ample scope. 

While answering this question, 

TT * <-., J, let us remember that we have 
Heart Changed? 

not two sets of faculties, as some 
seem to think, one for religion, and the other for 
the things of the world. The same powers used 
in business and in intellectual and moral matters 
are to be used in religion. And when we see how 
they are used in these things, we can understand 
their use in spiritual matters. 

10 



144 HOW TO BE SAVED 

a. The Intellect Is Changed by Testimony. 
You are on a jury, and the lawyer wishes so to 
change your mind that you will render a verdict 
in favor of his client. How does he proceed? He 
submits testimony, and asks you to examine it. Is 
there any other reasonable and honorable way to 
proceed? If not, and man having but one set of 
mental faculties, is it rational to expect God to 
proceed in a different way when he wants the 
mind changed? Suppose the lawyer should com- 
mand you to believe his client innocent, but furnish 
no proof; or suppose he should earnestly, tenderly 
and eloquently pray for the change in your heart, 
and should have others pray for you, and should 
induce you to pray, what would you think of him? 
You would answer: "The man is either himself 
deceived — does not know the nature of man — or 
he thinks I do not, and he is trying to deceive me. 
I can not believe without testimony." Certainly 
not. Neither can you believe in God and Christ 
without testimony, hence they have piled it about 
you, mountain high, and made it so clear that the 
wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. 

b. The Affections Are Changed by Loveli- 
ness. We instinctively love the lovely A vine is 
prostrate on the ground. You want it to rise, and 
you speak to it: "Little vine, get up out of the 
dust, so that you may breathe the sweet, pure 
atmosphere of heaven." It can not do it. Its ten- 
drils are reaching everywhere for a support by 
which to rise. You see this, and place the trellis 
within reach, and it begins to climb toward the 



CHANGE OF HEART 145 

sun. It needs no command or exhortation, but a 
trellis. The babe, cooing on its mother's bosom, 
needs not to be told to love her. The heart tendrils 
will fasten themselves about her — if she is lovely. 
You need not try to make the world love you. 
Only be lovely and the world will do the rest. And 
so it is in our religious nature. And when Christ, 
the fairest among ten thousand and the one alto- 
gether lovely, is presented to the heart, it clasps its 
arm about the cross, and is lifted up to God. No 
wonder the Master said: "And I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 
12:32); and no wonder that Paul, the prince of 
preachers, said: "I determined not to know any- 
thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
fied" (1 Cor. 2:2). 

c. The Will Is Changed by Motives. A man 
woos and wins the heart of a lovely woman, and he 
solemnly vows to be a true husband. But the 
vows are broken, and her heart is crushed. The 
light from her eye goes out; the tint fades from 
the cheek, and her laughter is changed to sobs and 
sighs. With every hope blasted, and surrounded by 
the ruins of all that she once held dear, and with 
her little ones about her, she cries in the depths of 
her desolate heart, not with her lips : "Precious 
children, but for you I would launch myself into 
awful eternity. Your father, once so good and 
true, has become a wreck — a helpless, hopeless 
wreck — and I am desolate indeed." This man is 
your friend; and you would rescue him, and light 
again with joy and love that little cottage home. 



146 HOW TO BE SAVED 

He loves his wife and children; he knows his duty; 
and in his better moments he desires to be to them 
again what he once was — a true husband and father. 
But, oh, how weak! His will power is shattered, 
and he is no longer a match for the tempter. 

What does he need? How can you rescue him? 
His mind does not need changing, and his affections 
do not need rekindling. But his will power needs 
to be aroused. How shall this be done? You 
tell him of his sorrowing wife and precious chil- 
dren, and of their love for him and need of him. 
And as you plead with him he weeps and despises 
himself as a covenant-breaker and a weakling. He 
clenches his teeth, bites his lips, and, with almost 
superhuman effort, once more rallies his broken 
powers, sends up a petition to God for help, and, 
like the prodigal, says, "I will arise!" And he 
does, in the strength of Jehovah, rise and become 
a man again. How was it done? The motives 
connected with wife and babies, coupled with help 
from on high, enabled him to rise. And so, when 
the Father would change our wills and nerve us 
for life's great battles, he presents motives embrac- 
ing every good thing in this life and in the life to 
come — motives high as heaven, deep as hell, broad 
as the universe, pure as Jesus, and strong and last- 
ing as the pillars of the throne of glory. 

d. The Conscience Is Changed by Right- 
doing. A child disobeys mother and is unhappy. 
And conscience, with a scourge of small cords, 
lashes the little one into an agony. With swollen 
eyes she tosses on her bed, for the sweet angel, 



CHANGE OF HEART 147 

Sleep, refuses to come. The guilty bosom, like 
the boiling sea, is tumbling, rolling and groaning 
under the mad chastening of the storm. 

What is her trouble? and how shall it be 
remedied? Her trouble is wrong-doing, and its 
only cure is right-doing. Let her steal up to 
mamma's side, throw her arms about her neck, beg 
her forgiveness, while she promises to be a better 
girl, and all will be well. The dark clouds will 
vanish, the angry waves will become calm, the 
fearful thunders will hush, the fierce lightnings will 
cease, and the sunlight of sweet peace will once 
more fill the soul. 

When the conscience of Zacchaeus condemned 
him, he promised to undo the wrong by bestowing 
half his goods upon the poor, and by restoring four- 
fold for all his fraudulent gains, and peace came 
to his heart and home. When the prodigal son 
fully realized his sin, he retraced his steps, and 
found peace and pardon and plenty awaiting his 
return. And thus it must ever be. W^hen we sin 
against God or man, the conscience, if not dead, 
will chide, and continue to chide until, so far as we 
are able, we undo the wrong. 

Would you have your heart changed? Remem- 
ber its importance. It is the hinge on which eternal 
destinies turn. No change of heart means no peace 
of soul on earth, and no home in heaven. Its 
importance can not be exaggerated. 

A young woman was intense- 
ly interested in her salvation, and 
she became so wrought up over the question of a 



148 HOW TO BE SAVED 

change of heart that her friends feared for the 
safety of her mind. Many attempts were made 
to meet her difficulty, but all failed. Finally, an 
old preacher, who had no diploma or eccelsiastical 
titles, but a man of rugged common sense, who 
knew his Bible and humanity, came that way. The 
parents besought him to help their darling daughter. 
He gladly made the attempt. And he soon learned 
that her trouble grew out of confusion of thought 
as to a change of heart. She had no conception as 
to what the heart was, and hence was totally igno- 
rant as to how it was changed. She had been taught 
that every conversion was the result of miraculous 
power, and she was waiting and praying for God 
to put forth that power and save her soul. But, 
being a woman of good mind, she soon learned the 
way of the Lord more perfectly. He asked her if 
she believed in God and Christ and the Bible, and 
she said she did. "Well," said he, "that part of the 
mind which believes is all right. You do not want 
it changed, for then you would no longer believe 
in your Creator, Saviour and their Book." She 
saw the point, and agreed with her new preacher. 

He then asked if she loved God, Christ, the 
Bible, and everything good; and was assured that 
she did. "Then," said the preacher, "you do not 
want that part of the heart which loves — the affec- 
tions — changed, for then you would hate these 
things." Again she agreed with him, and urged 
him to go on with his instructions. 

He next asked as to her purpose in life: had 
she determined to be a Christian? She answered 



CHANGE OF HEART 149 

that that was her supreme purpose. "Then, your 
will needs no change," he said. "Your purpose is 
pure and heavenward, and it would be ruinous to 
change it." Once more she grasped his clear logic, 
and begged him to go on. 

He now asked if her conscience gave her 
trouble, and was told that it almost drove her wild. 
"The only way to stop its lashings," said he, "is 
to undo the wrongs of the past as far as possible, 
and faithfully do the right in the future." She 
confessed her Saviour, and was baptized, and be- 
came a bright and shining light in the church. The 
conscience, the only section of the heart in rebellion, 
was changed, and she was at peace. 

How is it with you? If your faith and affec- 
tions and purposes are all pointing to God, as is true 
in many cases, and yet you are not happy, follow 
the example of this girl, and your heart will also 
be flooded and sweetened with the joys of heaven. 

Review. 

1. How can we tell what the heart is? 

2. What four things does the heart do? 

3. How is the intellect changed? 

4. How are the affections changed? 

5. How is the will changed? 

6. How is the conscience changed? 

7. Give an example illustrative of the change. 



X. 
THE CONFESSION 



151 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER K 

1. Origin of the Confession. 

2. Scope of the Confession, 

a. "Thou art the Christ." 

b. "The Son." 

c. "Of the Living God." 

3. The Confession and Baptism. 

4. Why We Should Make the Confession. 

a. For Our Own Good. 

b. For the Good of Others. 

c. For the Good of Christ. 



152 



X. 

The Confession. 

Now that the atmosphere about conversion, 
change of heart, etc., has been cleared up, we are 
ready to consider the question of the confession. 

Confession and baptism are so intimately related 
that a Scriptural discussion of the one involves the 
other. They are related to each other as sorrow 
and repentance, as love and marriage. There may 
be sorrow without repentance, and there may be 
love without marriage; but there can be no repent- 
ance without sorrow, and no marriage without 
love. Sorrow and love precede repentance and 
marriage, and make them possible. And so is 
confession related to baptism, and hence it should 
be studied in connection with that ordinance. But 
for our present purpose it is probably best, so far 
as possible, to study it as a distinct theme. 

When Christ appeared among 

* ^ . . men they formed different opin- 

Confession . •' . . ^ 

ions regarding him, just as they 
do to-day. Some thought him good, and others 
thought him bad; some said he was human, and 
others said he was divine; some thought him a 
teacher sent of God, and others that he was a 
deceiver of the people, and so they would express 
themselves. One would say, *'I believe he is the 
Messiah;" another, "I believe he is a prophet;" and 

153 



154 HOW TO BE SAVED 

still another, "I believe he is an impostor." Thus 
a line was drawn, and his enemies agreed "that if 
any did confess that he was the Christ, he should 
be put out of the synagogue" (John 9:22). The 
Saviour accepted the test and said: "He that con- 
fesses me before men, him will I confess before 
my Father in heaven; but he that denies me before 
men, him will I deny before my Father in heaven" 
(Matt. 10: 32, 33). Thus the confession, as regards 
men, originated naturally, and served to identify 
the followers of Christ; and on this account it 
became associated with baptism, the ordinance in 
which the sinner in symbol was separated from the 
service of Satan and dedicated to the service of 
God. 

Later in the Master's ministry the confession 
received an emphasis which gave to it the greatest 
possible importance. Benjamin Franklin made one 
of the most daring and far-reaching experiments 
ever made by man. A cluster of clouds hung over 
his head, and he gazed wistfully upon them, long- 
ing for light on a scientific question. Finally he 
let fly a paper kite with a metallic chain attached. 
He waited, watched and wondered, and finally ap- 
plied his knuckles to the chain, and the sparks of 
the wild lightning played about him; and had the 
stream been a little stronger, the bold philosopher 
would have died on the spot. And so clouds of 
opinions filled the heavens about the Saviour. 
Some said he was John the Baptist; some, that he 
was Elijah; others, that he was Jeremiah; and 
many, that he was one of the prophets. Everything 



THE CONFESSION 155 

was vague, hazy and misty, and, wanting some- 
thing definite, he sent out two questions — kite-like 
— and they brought back light and truth of infinite- 
ly more value than that secured by Franklin. 
"Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" 
(Matt. 16:13). And the answer came that he 
was some great personage ranking with the old 
heroes and prophets of the past. Another ques- 
tion quickly follows: "But whom say ye that I 
am?" (ver. 16). You have had the best oppor- 
tunity to know me: what do you say? You, for 
three years, have been at my side and seen much 
of my work: what of the worker? During that 
time you have known my teaching: what of the 
teacher? Peter, the foreman of the jury, or, as 
Chrysostom calls him, "the leader of the apostolic 
choir," answered : "Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God" (ver. 16). 

Great question! Great answer! Peter is at his 
best. Never before or afterward does he rise to 
a loftier height. His vision pierces the very heav- 
ens, and his voice is the echo of Jehovah. The 
heart of Columbus was filled and thrilled with 
joy as he looked for the first time on the New 
World; and so was Balboa, as, from a lofty moun- 
tain crag in Panama, his eyes first saw the Pacific 
Ocean. Marvelous as were these discoveries, they 
are not to be compared with that which now burst 
upon the vision of Peter. It was the sun of all 
light, the chief of all truth, and contained within 
its rich bosom the incarnation, the atonement and 
the resurrection. It had been hid from the wise 



■156 HOW TO BE SAVED 

and prudent and revealed to a babe. The proph- 
ets had not all seen it clearly. To the rabbi he was 
a root out of the dry ground, and with no beauty 
that he should be desired. The eyes of the philoso- 
phers were "holden" so that they only saw a man 
— a religious enthusiast — when the Son of God 
stood in their midst. But Simon Peter discovered 
the glorious truth, and proclaimed him Lord of 
lords and King of kings. No wonder the Lord 
pronounced a blessing on him, the like of which 
is not to be found in all the Book: "Blessed art 
thou, Simon, son of Jonah: for flesh and blood 
hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which 
is in heaven" (ver. 17). The Psalms begin with the 
words, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the 
counsel of the ungodly," etc., and the Sermon on 
the Mount with the words, "Blessed are the poor 
in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
But these are benedictions on a character, while 
this is a blessing on an individual. And what makes 
this more remarkable is that we seek in vain for 
another called "blessed" by the lips of our Lord. 

It is not strange that from this time forth he 
tells his disciples plainly of his death. He sees 
himself comprehended by, and enthroned in, the 
human heart, and he can safely leave the rest to 
his faithful followers, and he will return to the 
Father. 

Christianity is a symmetrical 

* ? . system of truth, harmonious and 

Confession •' 

complete, and, as such, must 

have a great common center. The sun is the center 



THE CONFESSION 157 

of the physical universe, and around him all the 
planets revolve. Destroy this fact, and our system 
of astronomy is destroyed; but accept it, and we 
thereby admit the laws of gravitation and attrac- 
tion, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, and 
acknowledge that the earth and all her sister 
planets revolve round him, and borrow from his 
brightness all light and luster. Mohammedanism 
as a religious system has its fundamental truth, 
the common center which gives character to all its 
teachings. The truth is: Mohammed is the proph- 
et of God. Accept this, and the whole system is 
accepted; reject it, and all is rejected. The con- 
fession is to Christianity what the sun is to the 
Copernican system of astronomy, and what the 
belief in Mohammed is to Mohammedanism. It is 
its great fundamental principle — the foundation on 
which the church rests — the one central truth to 
which all others are subordinate, and from which 
they receive their life and power. That this may 
be seen, let us analyze this confession: 

fl. "Thou art the Christ." Many seem to 
think that "Christ" is a part of the name of Jesus, 
and hence use the words "Jesus Christ" as they 
use "George Washington." But it is no part of 
his name. Jesus is his name, and it was divinely 
given (Matt. 1:20). Christ is his official title. 
Edward King is the name of a man. But Edward 
the king is much more. It means that he is the 
ruler of his people. Christ means anointed. The 
three synonymous words — "Messiah," which is 
Hebrew; "Christos," which is Greek, and "Christ," 



158 HOW TO BE SAVED 

which is English — all mean the "Anointed One," a 
term familiar to every Jew. So when Peter says, 
"Thou art the Christ," it meant that he was the 
"Anointed One." And they knew that but three 
classes of their rulers — prophets, priests and kings 
■ — were installed by anointing, and hence Jesus was 
declared to be their prophet, priest and king, and 
thus met the threefold wants of men — a power to 
deliver from ignorance, guilt and bondage. As 
Prophet he teaches, as Priest he atones and inter- 
cedes, and as King he liberates from the fetters 
of sin, rules over us, and leads to battle, victory 
and glory. He is pre-eminent. We are to hear 
no other prophet, to look to no other priest and to 
obey no other king. 

h. "The Son." Not a son in the sense in 
which all are sons; but as the Son in a peculiar 
sense — the divine and only Saviour. 

c. "Of the Living God." The besetting sin 
of the Jew was idolatry. Under the very shadow 
of Sinai, and while the Ten Commandments were 
still ringing in their ears, one of which specifically 
condemned it, they worship the golden calf. And 
ever afterward, till finally cured by the bitter bond- 
age of Babylon, they were continually falling into 
this terrible sin; hence the significance of the phrase 
"the living God." He is not the son of some lifeless 
god, such as could be seen on every hand, but of 
the living God, the Maker and Preserver of all 
things. 

That additional force and dignity may be given 
to this confession, let us hear a little further. God, 



THE CONFESSION 159 

who speaks through the Spirit, angels and men, sel- 
dom speaks in person. In the beginning he spoke, 
and a world sprang into existence. In Eden he 
spoke, and a family with language and religion was 
organized. After twenty-five hundred years his 
chariot of cloud paused over Horeb, and he spoke 
again, and a nation was organized. Fifteen cen- 
turies more pass by, and, as his Son comes up 
from his baptism in the Jordan, he again breaks 
the silence of the heavens and says: "This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And 
a little later, on the mount of transfiguration, he 
repeats the same words and adds, "Hear ye him." 
And Paul, looking forward to the consummation 
of all things, says: "God hath highly exalted him, 
and given him a name which is above every name, 
that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things 
under the earth, and that every tongue should con- 
fess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father" (Phil. 2:9-11). 

It is generally conceded that 
3. The Confession • ^1 1 /^u 1. ^u r 

, T> .. m the early Church the confes- 

and Baptism . ^ 

sion was used as a test of the 

fitness of candidates for baptism. In Acts 8 : 29-39 

we have, in all probability, the apostolic custom in 

this matter. The eunuch is convinced of the divinity 

of the Lord, and as they approach a suitable place 

for baptizing, he says, "See, here is water; what 

doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, 

If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. 

And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus 
11 



160 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Christ is the Son of God/' and immediately he was 
baptized. Admit that this clause, bringing out the 
confession, is an interpolation, still it is of great 
value. The object of the interpolator was to fill up 
a historic blank, so that the baptism should not 
appear abrupt, and, in supplying the blank, he 
would insert the usual custom. Now, if the inter- 
polation harmonizes with the Scriptures, it receives 
all needed corroboration. We have already seen 
how the confession, in the early ministry of Christ, 
located his friends. We have also seen that, when 
made by Peter, it was declared to be the founda- 
tion on which the Church was to be built. The 
eunuch, a stranger to Philip, is asking for admission 
into the Church, and it is most natural that the 
test be applied. The confession of Timothy was 
evidently made in connection with his baptism. 
"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal 
life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast con- 
fessed a good confession before many witnesses'* 
(1 Tim. 6: 12). The two thoughts here mentioned 
of his call, which is by the gospel (2 Thess. 2: 14), 
and by laying hold on eternal life, make this 
clear. 

The historians of the early Church corroborate 
this view of the confession. Irenaeus (A. D. 107) 
speaks of the eunuch's confession, showing that the 
apostolic custom continued till near the close of the 
second century. Mosheim says that "at the first 
proclamation of the gospel, all that professed firm- 
ly to believe that Jesus was the only Redeemer of 
mankind," were baptized. Neander says: "There 



THE CONFESSION 161 

was only one article of faith: belief in Jesus as 
the Messiah." Shedd: "The candidate for admis- 
sion to the Church, at his baptism, professed his 
faith in Christ as the Redeemer of the world." 
Conybeare and Howson: "In ordinary cases the 
sole condition required for baptism was, that the 
person to be baptized should acknowledge Jesus as 
the Messiah." 

It therefore seems safe to conclude that in the 
early Church the confession, as we practice it 
to-day, was the test of the fitness for baptism. 
The candidate was not required to accept an elabo- 
rate creed, and his opinion regarding speculative 
teachings was not asked for. His acceptance or 
rejection depended solely on his relationship to 
Christ. If he confessed him as the Son of God 
and Saviour of men, he was baptized; if he refused 
to do this, he was not baptized. But later, when 
theology had usurped the place of the gospel, and 
the theologian had displaced the evangelist, other 
tests were added, and the primitive simplicity and 
power of the truth were almost destroyed. 

a. For Our Own Good. It 

4. Why We commits us publicly to Christ. It 

Should Make the . vi u u- ^ • ^1 

r* J f^ r • IS like a brave soldier enterinsf the 
Good Confession . ... , 

territory of his foe and burning 

the bridges behind him. It was not a timid whis- 
per from a cave, but a clear, round voice in the 
sunlight, and in the presence of men. The angels, 
smiling in heaven, also heard it, and the demons 
glaring in the pit from below. It aligns us with 
Christ in the face of both friends and foes. The 



162 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Christian is not to be like reeds shaken by the wind ; 
we are not to occupy neutral territory. Travis in 
the Alamo, surrounded by thousands of Santa 
Anna's hosts floating the black flag, drew a line on 
the sward and said: 'Who will stand with me to 
the death, let him come over this side of the line." 
And every man went over. And Bowie, another 
leader, as brave as Travis, but sick, called to his 
companions: "Pick me up; I can not move; carry 
me over on that side." And how many of us have 
been steadied and made heroic in the after conflicts 
by remembering that God, angels and men had all 
once heard this confession from our lips? Don't 
fear to make a holy vow. Great men make great 
vows, and they serve as anchors for the soul. 

b. For the Good of Others. Christianity is 
much more than something between God and our- 
selves. The light must not be kept beneath the 
bushel. A seen religion is not always real; but a 
real religion is always seen. A plant grown in the 
dark is pale and sickly, and bears neither beautiful 
blossoms nor rich fruit. The bold stand taken in 
the confession will encourage your timid friends to 
confess their Saviour, as the act of Nicodemus in 
calling for the body of Jesus brought Joseph of 
Arimathea from obscurity. It will also add cour- 
age to the hosts who are battling for God, as 
Paul "thanked God and took courage" when he 
met his friends at Appii forum. 

Precept is good, but example is better. It slips 
into the life through the eyes and ears, and finds 
its way down into the heart, and out into the prac- 



THE CONFESSION 163 

tice, and by a secret charm, almost irresistible, it 
transforms life, making it beautiful and brave; or, 
robbing it of its virtues, leaves it wrecked and 
ruined on the world's highway. 

c. For the Good of Christ. If some friend 
who had been true to you or to yours in some 
emergency were maligned on the street, your blood 
would boil, and you would hasten to his defense. 
What friend has been so true as Jesus of Nazareth? 
In sunshine and in shadow alike he has ever been 
your friend. And he has also been the friend of 
your mother and father. Not one single good thing 
received in the whole of life but that came from 
his gracious hands. And yet this friend is being 
constantly blasphemed upon our streets. And if 
we do not confess him, we are not neutral, bad as 
that would be, but we are against him. "He 
that is not with me is against me" (Matt. 12:30). 

Review. 

1. Tell us of the origin of the confession. 

2. Tell of some of the great discoveries of the 
world. 

3. What of the scope of the confession? 

4. Give the meaning of the phrase "Thou art 
the Christ." 

5. What is the meaning of the phrase "The 
Son"? 

6. What is meant by the phrase "Of the living 
God"? 

7. What is the relationship of baptism and the 
confession? 



164 HOW TO BE SAVED 

8. What good comes to the individual who 
makes the confession? 

9. What good comes to his associates? 
10. What good comes to the Lord? 



XI. 

BAPTISM 



165 



OUTLINE— CHAPTER XI. 

1. Four Figures. 

a. Baptism of the Earth. 

b. Baptism of Israel in the Sea. 

c. Burial and Resurrection. 

d. Sufferings of the Saviour. 

2. Four Facte. 

a. John's Baptism. 

b. Baptisms at ^non. 

c. Baptism of Jesus. 

d. Baptism of the Eunuch. 

3. Four Other Proofs. 

o. Definition of "Baptizo." 

b. Testimony of the Greeks. 

c. Immersion Satisfies the Soul. 

d. It Is the Safe Way. 

4. Appeal to the Eye. 

5. Design of Baptism. 

6. Subjects of Baptism. 

a. The Covenant Argument. 

b. Baptism and Circumcision Con- 

trasted. 

7. Household Baptisms. 

8. Objections to Infant Baptism. 



166 



XI. 

Baptism. 

The penitent soul in search of salvation, having 
believed on the Christ, repented ot sin, and con- 
fessed the Saviour before men, is now ready to be 
baptized. How shall it be done? vSome would 
answer one thing and some another, but what saith 
the Book? "To the law and to the testimony: 
if they speak not according to this word, it is 
because there is no light in them" (Isa. 8:20). 

There is much perplexity here. Many people 
with honest hearts desire to do just what the Lord 
commands, but they do not know what it is. Hav- 
ing once passed through this experience, I can 
truly sympathize with them; and nothing will give 
me more pleasure than to come to their assistance 
in this hour of need. Let us now put away, if 
possible, all prejudice and preconceived notions, and 
study the question with the single desire of know- 
ing the truth and walking therein. Our first inquiry 
is as to what is baptism. 

a. Baptism of the Earth. 
I. Four Figures ,.^j^^, y^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ overflow of 

the earth in the flood] whereunto even baptism 
doth also now save us" (1 Pet. 3:21). In Gen. 
6 : 17-24 we are told that the flood came and the 
waters rose above the "high hills," "and the moun- 
tains were covered," and "every living substance 

167 



168 HOW TO BE SAVED 

was destroyed from the earth." And this, to 
Peter, is a picture of baptism; but it can not pos- 
sibly refer to anything but immersion, 

b. Baptism of Israel in the Sea. "More- 
over, brethren, I would not that you should be 
ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the 
cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were 
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the 
sea" (1 Cor. 10:1, 2). By reference to Ex. 14: 
15-22, we find the facts on which this figure rests. 
Moses stretched out his rod "over the sea, and the 
waters were parted, and stood like a wall unto them 
on the right hand and on the left; and the chil- 
dren of Israel entered into the midst of the sea on 
dry ground," while the pillar of cloud which had 
led them thus far, passed over to the rear and 
stood between the two hosts, concealing Israel from 
her enemies. Paul calls this a baptism. What 
kind of a baptism does it represent? Certainly 
not affusion. It bears as little resemblance to 
sprinkling or pouring as does the flood. But it 
does resemble an immersion. As the people passed 
in between the walls of water, with the cloud 
hanging over them and in rear of them, there was 
a fine picture of immersion. That you may see 
this clearly, place two books of equal size side by 
side, and standing upright a few inches apart, and 
hang a handkerchief on them, with its folds drop- 
ping down in the rear. The books are the walls 
of water, and the overhanging 'kerchief is the 
cloud, and the Jews are concealed in the inclosure, 
and you have the picture. 



BAPTISM 169 

c. Burial and Resurrection. "Know ye not, 
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore 
we are buried with him by baptism into death : that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk 
in newness of life. For if we have been planted 
together in the likeness of his death, we shall be 
also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6; 
3-5). No mistake should be made here. All are 
familiar with burials. Our loved ones have left 
us. We have stood by the grave, and, with break- 
ing hearts and streaming eyes, have watched their 
bodies sink beneath the sod. And then with the 
eye of faith we have seen these bodies raised and 
changed so as to be like unto the glorious body of 
the Lord. 

In this figure are three facts: (1) Death, (2) 
burial, (3) resurrection. And so the sinner (1) 
dies to sin, (2) is buried in baptism, and (3) rises 
from the liquid grave to walk in newness of life. 

And as we watch the penitent sinner sink 
beneath the wave, and rise to go forth in the Chris- 
tian life, we instinctively recognize the beauty and 
perfection of the symbol. No one can fail to see 
them; neither can he fail to see that the sprinkling 
or pouring of a little water on the head does not 
in any sense represent a burial. 

d. SuF ERiNGS OF THE Saviour. "I have a 
baptism to be baptized with; and how as I strait- 
ened [pained] till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12: 
50). The Saviour in these tender words refers to 



170 HOW TO BE SAVED 

his sufferings, and calls them a baptism. The awful 
agony of Gethsemane, with its bloody sweat, and 
Calvary, with its excruciating pain, its darkness 
and desertion, are before him, when from his brok- 
en heart would be wrung the bitter cry: "My 
God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me!" Let 
the reverent soul look upon this scene, and then 
ask himself. Does sprinkling a little water on the 
face, or the burial of the body in its depths, rep- 
resent these sufferings? Surely not the former, 
but the latter. As we see his pure soul plunged 
into this bitter sea of suffering, and behold the 
black waves, mountain high, overflow him, we feel 
that nothing short of the complete burial of the 
body in the baptismal waters can symbolize it. 

a. John's Baptism. "In those 
days came John the Baptist, 
preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, 
Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
. . . Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all 
Jud^a, and all the region round about Jordan, and 
were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their 
sins" (Matt. 3:1-6). Notice that John baptized 
"in Jordan." He did not stand on the bank near 
the water, but went down into the stream. Why 
this? If his baptism had been by affusion, I can 
see no sense in it, for he could easily have dipped 
up the water, and saved himself and the people 
the inconvenience of going into it. But as it was 
an immersion, the going down into the river was a 
necessity. 

h. Baptizing in ^Enon. "And John also was 



BAPTISM 171 

baptizing in ^^non near to Salim, because there 
was much water there" (John 3:23). We are not 
left to guess why John went to ^non to baptize, 
but are told that it was "because there was much 
water there." Sprinkling and pouring do not 
require "much water," but immersion does, there- 
fore John's baptism was immersion. If it should 
be said that a man located his mill at a certain 
place "because there was much water there," all 
would understand that it required "much water" 
to operate that mill. 

c. Baptism of Jesus. "And Jesus, when he 
was baptized, went up straightway out of the water" 
(Matt. 3:16). The Saviour's long journey to the 
Jordan to be baptized is finished. He makes known 
his mission to John, and he refuses to baptize 
him, claiming that himself, and not Jesus, needed 
to be baptized. But the Master replied: "Suffer 
it be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
righteousness." Then John led him into the water, 
and buried him beneath the yielding wave, after 
which he "went up straightway out of the water." 
The Lord here fixes forever the form of this 
ordinance by his own baptism. As we look upon 
this sacred scene, let prejudice and previotis bias 
have no place in our hearts, and let us ask, How 
was my Lord baptized? And when the answer is 
clear, let us walk in his footsteps, whatever be the 
cost. And what is the answer? There can be but 
one: He was immersed. Immersion requires com- 
ing up out of the water ; sprinkling and pouring do 
not ; therefore Jesus was immersed. 



172 HOW TO BE SAVED 

d. Baptism of the Eunuch. "And as they 
went on their way, they came unto a certain water: 
and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth 
hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou 
believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And 
he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ 
is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot 
to stand still : and they went down both into the 
water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized 
him. And when they were come up out of the 
water," etc. (Acts 8:36-39). This story, plain 
enough for a primer, could not be misunderstood 
by men of clear heads and honest hearts. It says 
that they first came to the water. That would have 
been sufficient for affusion. No need in that case 
to go down into it, but only to dip it up. But it 
does not stop there. After coming to the water, 
they next go down into it, and there the baptism 
takes place ; and after the baptism they came up out 
of the water. All this is necessary for immersion, 
but not for affusion; therefore this is a case of 
immersion. It is said that in the early days of our 
history a preacher found a bright Indian boy, told 
him about the Christ, gave him the New Testament, 
and asked him to read it and be ready to do his 
duty when he came again. They separated, the 
preacher going over his long circuit, and the boy to 
his wigwam to study his strange new book. After 
three months they met again. The preacher asked 
the boy if he had learned his duty to Jesus, and 
was told that he had. "What is it, my son?" asked 
the preacher. "Duty of Injun to be baptized," 



BAPTISM 173 

replied the boy. The good man thanked the Lord. 
The boy asked when he could be baptized, and 
was told to-day. He then asked where he would 
be baptized, and was informed that it would take 
place there where they were assembled. After a 
puzzled survey of the surroundings, in which he 
failed to discover any such facilities as he thought 
necessary, he asked, "Where is water for bap- 
tizing Injun?" "Here it is," said the preacher, 
pointing to a pitcher on the table. "You no put 
Injun down into pitcher," was the prompt reply. 
"I will not put you in the pitcher," said the 
preacher, "but will pour the water on your 
head." With a look of keenest disappointment, 
the boy turned away, saying, "You give Injun 
wrong book." 

What a commentary on the simplicity of the 
language of the New Testament on the subject 
of baptism. This intelligent and honest-hearted 
boy, who had never heard of a Greek lexicon or 
grammar, and knew not the meaning of the word 
"theology," reads it without prejudice, learns that a 
penitent believer should be baptized, and that, in 
order to baptism, he has to go down into the water. 
And perhaps there is not, and never has been, and 
never will be, a similar situation without a similar 
conclusion. 

Putting these figures and facts together, the case 
of immersion is made out. It is not all that could 
be said, but it is all that need be said. For if we 
will not be convinced by them, we would hardly be 
convinced even though a large volume was written 



174 HOW TO BE SAVED 

on the subject. But that certainty may be made 

doubly sure, I will add 

0. Definition of Baptism. 

■n, r The Greek word from which we 

Proofs . ,, 

get our word 'baptism means 

primarily to immerse. The scholarship of the world, 
whatever may be the practice of these scholars as 
to baptism, may be regarded a unit on this point. 
There are two other words in the Greek, one 
meaning to sprinkle and the other to pour, and yet 
the Master passed both of them by and chose the 
one which means immerse. This fact alone ought 
forever to settle this question. 

b. Testimony of the Greeks. If in China a 
question should be raised as to the meaning of an 
English word, the best way to settle it would be to 
appeal to the English-speaking people. Applying 
this principle in this case, let us appeal to the 
Greeks. Ancient and modern Greek is substan- 
tially the same. If the Greek Fathers — Socrates, 
Plato, Demosthenes and Homer — should return to 
Athens to-day, they would have little difficulty in 
reading the daily papers. It is claimed that there 
has been less change in the Greek language during 
the past twenty-four hundred years than in the 
English within the past five hundred years. The 
word "baptize" is therefore in constant use among 
the Greeks to-day, and it is used now as it was 
in the time of Christ. Cereas, a strong Greek 
writer, says: "Righteousness forbids a man to dip 
[baptize] his pen in the filth of flattery." And their 
religious practice is immersion. And, to cap the 



BAPTISM 175 

climax, the Presbyterians of the United States have 
some churches in Greece, and they practice immer- 
sion. 

c. Immersion Satisfies the Soul. Water 
slakes thirst, bread appeases hunger, light fits the 
eye, and sound the ear, showing that these things 
were designed for these purposes. And so it is 
with immersion. It is a well-known fact that 
thousands of good people are constantly becoming 
dissatisfied with sprinkling and pouring, and are 
immersed; but not so with the immersed. Their 
baptism satisfies the soul, and leaves it, so far as 
that ordinance is concerned, forever at rest, showing 
that as bread and water, light and sound are adapted 
to man's material wants, so is this ordinance adapted 
to his spiritual wants. 

d. It Is the Safe Way. In material things a 
statement like this has wonderful weight. If the 
reader wished to buy a home, and, finding two 
places which he liked equally well, should ascertain 
that there was well-grounded doubt as to the title 
of one, but none as to the other, he would not 
hesitate to choose the place about whose title there 
was no doubt. It would not be necessary to con- 
vince him that the title was bad; only show him 
that it is reasonably doubtful, and he would turn 
from it, and he would be wise. ("The children 
of this world are wiser in their generation than 
the children of light.") And this is the exact posi- 
tion of the baptismal question. Immersion is not 
in doubt, but affusion is. The great army of those 
who practice nothing but immersion, and multitudes 

12 



176 



HOW TO BE SAVED 



of others who practice affusion, testify to the 
Scripturalness of immersion, and all others say it 
is all right, but add that they think the form of 
baptism is not important, and so they substitute 
something else for it. The title of affusion is there- 
fore clearly in doubt; why not take the safe side? 

Let us close this study with an 
4. Appeal to the Eye 



Baptism Requires: 


Immersion Requires : 


Affusion 
Requires: 


1. Water (Matt. 3: 16). 

2. Much water (John 3: 

3. Cjming to the water 

(Acts 8: 38). 

4. Going down into the 

water (Acts 8: 38). 

5. Coming up out of the 

water (Acts 8: 39). 

6. The figure of a burial 

(Rom. 6:4). 

7. The figure of a resur- 

rection (Rom. 6: 
4)- 


I. 
3. 

3- 
4- 
5- 
6. 

7- 


Water. 
Much water. 

Coming to the water. 

Going down into the 
water. 

Coming up out of the 
water. 

The figure of a buri- 
al. 

The figure of a resur- 
rection. 


I. Water. 
a 


5 




c 


6 


7 





From the diagram, which is based on the Scrip- 
tures, it is seen that immersion meets the seven 
requirements of baptism ; but affusion only meets 
one; therefore immersion is baptism. 

Baptism must have a purpose, 
or it would have no place in the 
scheme of redemption. What is 
that purpose? In connection with faith and repent- 
ance, the Book teaches that it is "for the remission 
of sins." This ought to settle the matter with 
Bible believers, but it does not. Many of them 



5. Design of 

Baptism 



BAPTISM 177 

believe that men are saved without baptism, and 
that it has no connection with "remission of sins." 
Their theory is based on a certain class of Scrip- 
tures. Let us examine this opposing theory. 

"He that believeth on him is not condemned" 
(John 3:18), and "he that believeth on the Son 
hath everlasting life" (John 3: 36), are fair samples 
of the Scriptures used as a basis for this theory. 
It is argued that since one is not condemned 
when he believes, and as in the absence of con- 
demnation he is pardoned, therefore faith is the 
sole conditior of salvation. 

Over against these passages let a few others be 
placed. "Many other signs truly did Jesus in the 
presence of his disciples which are not written in 
this book; but these are written that ye might 
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; and 
that believing ye might have life through his name" 
(John 20:30). "He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not, but as many as received 
him, to them gave he power [or the right of 
privilege] to become the sons of God" (John 1:11, 
12). Here we are taught, not that the believer is 
saved, but that he has the right, privilege and 
power of being saved. I am not an Englishman, 
but I have the right, privilege and power of becom- 
ing one if I choose. When it is declared that my 
attitude to England gives me the privilege of becom- 
ing an Englishman, it is also clearly implied that I 
am not an Englishman. 

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou 
doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble" 



178 HOW TO BE SAVED 

(Jas. 2: 19). Here is faith so strong that it makes 
even a devil tremble, but he is not pardoned. 

"Ye see then how by works [obedience] a man 
is justified, and not by faith only" (Jas. 2:24). 
This Clear statement needs no comment. 

The fundamental trouble with this theory is 
that it does not go far enough. It stops with one 
of the conditions of pardon. Faith is all right, but 
it is not the only condition of salvation. A French- 
man twenty-one years of age asks how old a man 
must be in this country in order to vote. You tell 
him twenty-one years. He hurries to the voting- 
place and asks for the privilege of suffrage, but 
is denied. Why? Not because he has not one of 
the qualifications of an American voter, and a most 
important one, but because he has only one. He 
must comply with all the conditions of the law of 
suffrage, or he can not vote. He must not scrap 
this law. And so we must not scrap the Scriptures 
on the subject of pardon. We must believe, we 
must repent, and we must be baptized. By scrap- 
ping the Scriptures we can prove anything. "Judas 
went out and hanged himself;" "Go thou and do 
likewise;" "What thou doest, do quickly." This 
is all Scripture, and, scrapped in this way, it 
teaches us to commit suicide, and to do it just as 
soon as possible. 

The true theory is not that baptism alone is for 
the remission of sins. In fact, in the Bible sense 
of the term, there can be no such thing as baptism 
without faith, repentance, love of God, holy pur- 
poses, etc. A man without these qualifications might 



BAPTISM 179 

be buried in water a thousand times, and it would 
not be Bible baptism. That is the reason why we 
do not baptize babies. They can not exercise these 
spiritual qualifications which must go before and 
prepare the subject for baptism. Water in the 
abstract is absolutely without value in Christian 
baptism. 

It is not that no one unbaptized can be saved. 
Infants die by the millions and go to heaven with- 
out baptism. Idiots do not need to be baptized. 
It is easy to conceive a penitent man so situated 
physically that baptism would be impossible. In 
that case he would be saved without it. Where 
there is no ability there is no responsibility. The 
true theory contemplates a penitent believer who 
can, if he will, obey the Lord in the ordinance of 
baptism. We note some of the proofs of this 
theory : 

"Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should 
be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under 
the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and 
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in 
the sea" (1 Cor. 10:2). The bondage of Egypt 
was a type of the bondage of sin; the deliverance 
of Israel from this bondage by Moses was a type 
of the deliverance of the world from the bondage 
of sin; Moses as a leader was a type of Jesus 
Christ; and baptism into Moses was typical of 
baptism into Christ. When, then, were the Israel- 
ites made free? Not when they began their march 
from Egypt; and not when they halted in front 
of the sea. The hosts of Pharaoh are close upon 



180 HOW TO BE SAVED 

them, and all are filled with fear. But soon the 
sea is opened, and, obeying the command of their 
leader, they passed through it — are baptized unto 
Moses — and on the other side they realize their 
freedom, and sing the song of deliverance. x\nd 
so when we forsake sin, and, in full assurance of 
faith, are baptized "into Christ," we are pardoned 
and made free men in the Lord. But our freedom, 
as in the case of Israel, does not precede, but fol- 
lows, our baptism. 

"The like figure whereunto even baptism doth 
also now save us (not the putting away of the filth 
of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience 
toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" 
(1 Pet. 3:21). Noah's salvation was from destruc- 
tion by the waters of the flood. He did what God 
told him to do — prepared an ark — and Jehovah 
brought him safely through the waters, and on this 
side of them he rejoiced in salvation. And thus, 
Peter tells us that baptism saves us. But, lest we 
make a mistake, he says our baptism is not "the 
putting away of the filth of the flesh," as were 
the ceremonial dippings of the old covenant, "but 
the answer of a good conscience toward God." 
How "the answer of a good conscience"? The 
penitent man who is well taught knows that the 
Saviour says, "He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved," and his conscience will never cease 
to chide so long as this known duty is neglected. 

"John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach 
the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" 
(Mark 1:4). "The baptism of repentance" is one 



BAPTISM 181 

which grows out of repentance; is produced because 
one is penitent; and such a baptism is for remission 
of sins. It is not baptism by itself, but baptism in 
connection with repentance. 

"Except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God'* 
(John 3:5). Our sins are forgiven when we 
enter the kingdom of God; but the birth of water 
(baptism) and of the Spirit lies between us and 
that kingdom, therefore this birth is for remission 
of sins. 

**As many of you as have been baptized into 
Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). Out of 
Christ we are unsaved; in Christ we are saved; 
whatever, therefore, puts us in Christ is essential 
to salvation; baptism does this, hence it is for the 
remission of sins. 

"Not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to his mercy he saved us by 
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Spirit" (Tit. 3:5). We are saved by the 
washing of regeneration; the washing of regenera- 
tion means baptism; therefore baptism is for the 
remission of sins. 

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gos- 
pel to every creature; he that believeth and is bap- 
tized shall be saved; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned" (Mark 16: 15, 16). This passage 
is of special importance, because it is the commis- 
sion under which salvation is to be offered to the 
world. And we should rejoice that its terms are so 
simple that all can understand them. The gospel 



182 HOW TO BE SAVED 

is to be preached; those who believe it and are bap- 
tized shall be saved; therefore baptism is necessary 
to salvation. It may be suggested that it only says 
that *'he that believeth not shall be damned," not 
he that believeth not and is not baptized. That 
is true. The unbeliever will be lost, whether bap- 
tized or not. As already shown, there can be no 
baptism without faith. The man who loves a good 
woman and is married is happy, but the man who 
loves not is miserable. This is true of him, whether 
married or not, hence the phrase "and is married'* 
need not be repeated in order to describe his con- 
dition. There can be no true marriage without 
love, and there can be no Bible baptism without 
faith, hence the awful truth that the unbeliever is 
lost, and the man who loves not is not happy. 

"Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then 
Peter said unto them. Repent, and be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for 
the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift 
of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:37, 38). This Scrip- 
ture is also of special importance because it is a 
part of the first sermon preached under the commis- 
sion of our Lord, and it was preached by a man 
supernaturally guided, so that a mistake was impos- 
sible. The language is as simple as the world ever 
heard. The audience was convinced of the crime of 
murdering Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, and 
in their desperation they cried out to know what 
they should do. The answer is, "Repent, and be 
baptized." But that is not all. This was to be 
done "in the name of Jesus Christ," this man 



BAPTISM 183 

whom ye have murdered. And this is not all. He 
next tells them the purpose of this repentance and 
baptism : it is for the "remission of sins." And 
even this is not all: and he connects with it the 
promise of the indwelling Spirit: "And ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." 

We must hear J. S. Sweeney on this passage. 
"Does this language of Peter make baptism a con- 
dition precedent to remission of sins? We say it 
does, and here we will stand or fall. The contro- 
versy hinges on the meaning of the word 'for.' We 
say it means 'in order to,' while it is contended by 
our opponents that its sense is 'because of.' It will 
be granted that it sometimes has the meaning we 
give it in this case; and we are ready to admit that 
it sometimes means 'because of.' And what is here 
said of 'for' may be truly said of the Greek word 
it represents. Then, can we ascertain what the 
word means in this passage? Happily for the 
truth, there is a circumstance in the case which 
enables us to determine this question. It is this: 
The relation which 'for' expresses here between 
baptism and remission, is the same that repentance 
sustains to remission, the relation of both to remis- 
sion being expressed at once by the same word; 
therefore that relation is one. The law to the 
believer is, 'Repent, and be baptized for the remis- 
sion of sins!' Will any one say that we may read, 
'Repent, and be baptized because of the remission 
of sins'? Does any one believe in repentance be- 
cause of the remission of sins? Not one so believes. 
The relation of repentance to remission is that of 



184 HOW TO BE SAVED 

a precedent to a subsequent. But the relation of 
baptism must be the same, for it is expressed by 
the same word, and at the same time; therefore the 
relation of baptism to the remission of sins is that 
of a precedent to a consequent." 

"And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be 
baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the 
name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). Saul, the 
mighty persecutor, was still in his sins; he was told 
to wash them away (figuratively, of course) in bap- 
tism; therefore baptism is for the remission of 
sins. 

Let us obey the whole law of pardon, lest the 
fate of Eden fall upon us. A false teacher entered 
the beautiful garden, and told Adam and Eve that 
it was not necessary to do all God said. Most likely 
he told them that the clause prohibiting the eating 
of fruit from a certain tree was arbitrary, unreason- 
able and unphilosophic. They heeded his voice, and 
disregarded a plain command ; not plainer, however, 
than baptism is to us, and they fell, and brought 
death into the world with all its woe. May this 
warning make us wise. 

Having found that the bap- 
6. Subjects of ^jg^ ^^ ^^^ g.^^jg j^ immersion. 
Baptism . . r 1 • • 

and that it is for the remission 

of sins, we next ask, Who should be baptized? 
There are two answers to this question : ( 1 ) Peni- 
tent believers, and (2) infants not old enough to 
believe. Those giving the second answer, of course, 
do not oppose the baptism of believers. In fact, 
the baptism of penitent believers, like immersion, 



BAPTISM 185 

is not in controversy. It is common ground. Only 
the second answer is in debate, and to its discus- 
sion we now proceed. 

The identity of the covenants is the first argu- 
ment generally used in support of infant baptism. 
It is claimed that the covenants of the Old and 
New Testaments are the same, and that as there 
were infants in the first, there are also infants in 
the second. Dr. McLean, speaking of the day of 
Pentecost, says* "'The language is such as would 
be used of the continuance of the Old Testament 
church. . . . This church was now changed from 
a Jewish to the Christian church." In reply to this 
let it be said: 

a. There Was No True Church During the 
Old Testament Times. The people of Israel in 
the wilderness were not the church in the Chris- 
tian sense of the term, but only in the sense that 
they were called out from Egypt and made a sep- 
arate body. The conditions of membership did not 
involve piety, change of heart, etc. They were 
not required to be born again (John 3:5) as in the 
Christian church. They were in a large measure 
idolaters. It would be much more in harmony 
with the facts to call them, not a church, but the 
commonwealth of Israel, a semi-religious institu- 
tion into which men could enter and remain without 
spiritual requirements. Infants were in that com- 
monwealth just as they are in the commonwealth 
of Texas. 

It is a very significent fact that the King James 
translators do not give us the word "church" in 



186 HOW TO BE SAVED 

the whole of the Old Testament; and not in the 
New until the sixteenth chapter of Matthew. This 
shows that they were unwilling to identify anything 
found in Israel with the New Testament idea of 
the church. 

b. The Church Had Not Been Built During 
THE Personal Ministry of Christ. "But whom 
say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and 
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God. And Jesus answered, and said unto him. 
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
who is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that 
thou art Peter, and upon this rock [your confes- 
sion] I will build my church" (Matt. 16:15-18). 
This is fifteen hundred years after the Israelites 
had been called out of Egypt, and still the church 
is a thing of the future. According to this theory, 
it was then old — fifteen centuries old; but accord- 
ing to the facts as gleaned from the Saviour, it was 
still to be built. Suppose the reader should say to 
a friend, as he pointed to a foundation, "On this 
foundation I will build my house," would it be 
reasonable to understand him to mean that he would 
remodel an old house already built? Certainly not. 
And yet this language is not stronger than the 
language of the Saviour. 

c. Differences Between the Covenants. "Be- 
hold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
make a new covenant with the house of Israel, 
and with the house of Judah; not according to the 
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day 



BAPTISM 187 

that I took them by the hand to bring them out of 
the land of Egypt; which covenant they brake, 
although I was an husband unto them, saith the 
Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will 
make with the house of Israel* After those days, 
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inv/ard 
parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be 
their God, and they shall be my people. And they 
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and 
every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord: for 
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto 
the greatest of them, for I will forgive their 
iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more'* 
(Jer. 31:31-34). 

Here is a promise six hundred years before 
Christ that "a new covenant" would be made. 
Turning to the eighth chapter of Hebrews, we find 
that the promise was fulfilled. "In that he saith, 
A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now 
that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to 
vanish away." Such language would not be used 
in connection with the "continuance of the Old 
Testament church." It is a "new covenant" — not 
a renewed one — which was promised and given. 
Let us note the points of difference: 

(1) Only male children were circumcised (Gen. 
17 : 10) ; but both sexes were baptized. 

(2) They were circumcised when eight days old 
(Gen. 17:12); but no particular age is observed 
in infant baptism. 

(3) If uncircumcised, the child was "cut off 
from his people" (Gen. 17:14), but in the new 



188 HOW TO BE SAVED 

covenant Paul says, "If ye be circumcised, Christ 
shall profit you nothing" (Gal. 5:2). 

(4) If baptism has taken the place of circum- 
cision, it is strange that the famous Jerusalem coun- 
cil (Acts 15) did not so declare. The matter was 
before them, for in their decision, which was 
scattered broadcast among the churches, it is said: 
"Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which 
went out from us have troubled you, saying. Ye 
must be circumcised and keep the law," etc. (ver. 
24). How easy and natural for them, if such was 
the case, to have settled this troublesome matter 
for all time by saying that baptism in the new 
covenant takes the place of circumcision in the old. 
But they did not say it, and that proves, with the 
force of a demonstration, that it is not true. 

(5) What, then, is true? "He is not a Jew 
which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision 
which is outward in the flesh ; but he is a Jew who 
is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose 
praise is not of men, but of God" (Rom. 2: 28, 29). 
The circumcision of the old covenant was of the 
flesh, but that ot the new is of the heart, and hence 
we have both it and baptism in the new; the one 
using the blood of Christ and the other the bap- 
tismal waters; the one pertaining to the heart and 
the other to the flesh. 

This arsTiment for infant bap- 
7. Household ^. ^ , . ^ 

g . tism was so completely over- 

turned by L. B. Wilkes in the 
"Louisville Debate'' that I give it to the reader: 



BAPTISM 189 

"To demonstrate infant baptism from household 
baptism, my friend must adopt and defend the two 
following syllogisms : All households have infants 
in them; the apostles baptized some households; 
therefore the apostles baptized infants. 

"Now observe, if the major premise is not 
true, that all households have infants in them, 
households might have been baptized, and yet no 
infants baptized. The minor premise is true, that 
the apostles baptized some households; but it does 
not follow, since the major premise is known to 
be false, that infants were baptized. The major 
premise must be true, and the minor must be true, 
else the conclusion sought to be arrived at does not 
follow. Yet the conclusion is precisely what my 
friend is compelled to prove, or what he has under- 
taken to prove. 

"His statement is that infant baptism is author- 
ized by the word of God. This will require another 
syllogism, growing out of the previous one; viz., 
if the apostles baptized any infants, then infant 
baptism is authorized by the word of God. The 
apostles did baptize some infants; therefore infant 
baptism is authorized by the word of God. The 
minor premise states that they did baptize some 
infants, and the conclusion is that, therefore, infant 
baptism is authorized by the word of God. But, 
in order to reach this conclusion, it must be shown 
that there are infants in all households, which we 
know is not true. If there were infants in all 
households, then by proving that the apostles bap- 
tized households, it would follow that they baptized 



190 HOW TO BE SAVED 

infants; but since we know that there are house- 
holds with no infants in them, it does not follow 
that the apostles baptized infants from the fact that 
they baptized households." 

This logic is conclusive, and the case might rest 
here; but we will corroborate it by an examination 
of some of these households. In the household of 
Cornelius (Acts 10:46) they heard, they spoke with 
tongues, and they magnified God; hence there. were 
no infants there. In the household of Lydia (Acts 
16 : 14, 40) all were old enough to be comforted 
by the words of the apostle; hence there were no 
infants there. In the case of the jailer (Acts 16: 
34) all rejoiced and believed; hence there were no 
infants there. In the case of Crispus (Acts 18:8) 
all believed; hence there were no infants there. 
And in the case of Stephanas ( 1 Cor. 1:16; 16 : 
15) they "addicted [gave] themselves to the min- 
istry;" hence there were no infants there. And 
so of the other households. 

Let us close this refutation by an appeal to 
modern experience. An Illinois preacher has bap- 
tized three households of jailers in which there 
were no infants. Another has baptized ten house- 
holds, and yet he never baptized an infant. And 
doubtless hundreds of my readers have had much 
the same experience. 

a. It Reverses the Divine 
8 Objections to ^^^^ .^j^^^ therefore the 
Infant Baptism , , ■i-.i • 

Lord knew how the Pharisees 

had heard that Jesus made and baptized more dis- 
ciples," etc. (John 4:1). "Go ye therefore and 



BAPTISM 191 

teach [make disciples] all nations, baptizing them," 
etc. (Matt. 28: 19). These Scriptures show that 
the order of the Saviour in his work, and the 
order to be followed by the apostles in theirs, was 
to teach first, and then baptize the taught. The 
commission, according to the theory of infant bap- 
tism, should read, "Go ye therefore and baptize all 
nations, and then teach them," etc. 

b. It Obliterates the Distinction Between 
THE Church and the World. If infant baptism, 
from this day, should become universal, and should 
so continue for a single generation, every infant 
having been baptized, the church and the world 
would be one, and the spiritual distinction which 
God desires to exist between them would be blotted 
out. 

c. It Does No Good. What does a child gain 
by being baptized which it might not gain without 
baptism? What does it lose without baptism that 
it might not lose with it? What is either gained 
or lost in time or eternity by having the child bap- 
tized, or by a failure to have it baptized? Whether 
baptized or not, it is saved; hence its baptism is 
meaningless and profitless. Two little children, 
pure as when God gave them to the earth, are 
sleeping side by side in the cemetery; one was bap- 
tized, and the other was not. What difference did 
it make in this life? and what difference will it 
make in the life beyond? 

d. It Ignores the Power of Choice. This is 
one of our royal privileges. We are not machines, 
driven or dragged hither and thither according to 

13 



192 HOW TO BE SAVED 

the whims and caprices of another; but we are men 
made in the image of God, and endowed with the 
power of saying "'Yes" or "No" even to our 
Maker. But infant baptism ignores this high pre- 
rogative, and the child is baptized whether it wills 
or not, and generally much against its will. Sup- 
pose a young man should attend a series of meet- 
ings, but would not become a Christian. After 
much teaching, preaching and exhortation have 
failed, a number of his friends seize him, and, 
against his most earnest protest, baptize him. Every 
one would call this an outrage, and such it would 
be. But how much worse to baptize against his 
will one who weighs 150 pounds, or one of half 
that weight? You answer that the cases are the 
same. Well, how much worse to baptize one of 
seventy-five pounds against his will than one of 
100 pounds? The answer is that they are both 
equally bad. Then, if it is wrong to baptize one of 
100 pounds against his will, how can it be right to 
baptize one of ten pounds? 

Review. 

1. Give four figures in proof of immersion. 

2. Give four facts in proof of immersion. 

3. Give four other proofs of immersion. 

4. Give the diagram argument. 

5. State the false theory as to the design of 
baptism. 

6. What is the true theory on this question? 

7. Give some proofs of this theory. 

8. Give J. S. Sweeney's argument. 



BAPTISM 193 

9. What is the covenant argument for infant 
baptism ? 

10. Answer this argument. 

11. Give L. B. Wilkes' argument on household 
baptisms. 

12. State the objections to infant baptism. 



XII. 
EVIDENCE OF PARDON 



195 



OUTUNE— CHAPTER XII. 

1. Character and Method of Witnesses. 

a. God's Spirit. 

b. Man's Spirit. 

2. What Is the Testimony? 

a. Not a New Revelation. 

b. Not Feelings. 

c. Not Sincerity. 

d. But the Joint Testimony of God and 

Man. 

3. A Picture. 



196 



XII. 
Evidence of Pardon. 

When a child does wrong, sees his error, repents, 
and asks his father's forgiveness, can he not, and 
should he not, know whether he has been forgiven? 
It would seem that a good father would so speak 
to his penitent boy as not to leave him in doubt 
And will our Father in heaven do less? Surely not. 
And therefore I believe that when we repent of 
our sins, and turn to him for forgiveness, he will 
speak to us in words so simple and clear that we may 
know we have been pardoned. 

This conclusion is reached in another way : God 
wants us to be happy; but this can not be without 
a knowledge of forgiveness; therefore, he will fur- 
nish us that knowledge. Should this penitent boy 
be in doubt as to his forgiveness, to the extent of 
that doubt he would be unhappy. Hear his sad 
soliloquy: "At times I think father has forgiven me, 
and often I doubt, hence my joy fluctuates with 
every phase of hope. Oh that I had something 
solid on which to rest this hope!" And when he 
sings, his favorite song will be the one which I used 
to sing when groping in darkness and doubt at this 
verv point: 

" *Tis a point I long to know, 

•And oft it causes anxious thought: 
Do I love the Lord or no? 
Am I his or am I not?" 
197 



198 HOW TO BE SAVED 

There have been thousands of people in the 
past, and there are thousands to-day, who have 
been faithful, or are now faithful in their service 
of God, and yet they never had comfort at this 
point. 

An additional proof of this point is found in 
the New Testament teachings, where all is the most 
confident assurance. "We are always confident, 
knowing that while we are at home in the body, 
we are absent from the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6). 
"Being then made free from sin, ye become the 
servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6:18). "In 
whom we have redemption through his blood, the 
forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1:7). "Knowing, breth- 
ren beloved, your election of God" (1 Thess. 1:4). 
"Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to 
make your calling and election sure" (2 Pet. 1 : 10). 
"Hereby we do know that we know him, if we 
keep his commandments" (1 John 2:3). "Beloved, 
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 
appear what we shall be: but we know that when 
he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall 
see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). "We know that 
we have passed from death unto life, because we 
love the brethren" ( 1 John 3 : 14) . Not a single 
note of doubt or uncertainty here, but all the lan- 
guage of confidence. 

But how may we secure this knowledge and 
enjoy this assurance? In order to do this, let it 
be remembered that this is not a question of dreams 
or fleshly sensations, but one of fact, and as such 
it must be settled by testimony. And Paul fur- 



EVIDENCE OF PARDON 199 

nishes the key to the problem in these words : "The 
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that v/e 
are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 16). Note the 
fact that there are two witnesses, and not one, as 
many suppose. God's Spirit does not testify to 
our spirit, but the two spirits testify jointly. If I 
testify to you, there is but one witness; but if I 
testify with you, there are two. 

a. God's Spirit. When the 
I. Character and lawyer shows that the witnesses 
Method of the ... ,. i- , i 

Witnesses agamst his client are not reliable, 

his case is safe, regardless of 
their testimony. But if this can not be done, and 
the testimony is conclusive, the case is lost. Let 
the same rule apply here; and in its application 
we ask: (1) Is the witness trustworthy? and (2) 
How does he testify? 

Applied to God's Spirit, the first question can 
not be discussed. His is the Spirit of truth, the 
fountain of all spiritual knowledge, and hence it 
can not be doubted. We therefore raise the second 
question. How does he testify? "But when they 
deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye 
shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same 
hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that 
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh 
in you" (Matt. 10:18-20). This teaches that the 
Spirit testifies through words. 

"Which things also we speak, not in the words 
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 
Spirit teacheth" (1 Cor. 2:13, 14). Here, again, 
this witness testifies in words. Having ascertained 



200 HOW TO BE SAVED 

that the first witness is reliable, and that he testifies 
through words, we next inquire as to 

b. Man's Spirit. Possibly some reader ques- 
tions the fact that man's spirit witnesses to himself. 
Let us hear Paul again: "I say the truth in Christ, 
I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness 
in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 9:1). The same verb 
is used here as in Rom. 1 : 16. Is this witness also 
reliable? Can we rest confidently on this testimony 
as on the other? A man murdered his wife. 
Suborned witnesses, skillfully instructed by a shrewd 
lawyer, proved that he was forty miles from her at 
the time of the murder, and was therefore innocent. 
But the spirit of the man knew the testimony was 
false, and that he was guilty. And if the angels 
and the redeemed had corroborated the false wit- 
nesses, the spirit of the man would still have re- 
mained the same. And, upon the other hand, if the 
husband had been innocent, no amount of testimony 
could have convinced his spirit of guilt. This great 
question did not depend on outside testimony. And 
thus it is seen that the spirit of man is trustworthy. 

A word of caution : I do not mean to say that 
one may not do wrong, and still have his spirit 
encourage him in the wrong. This will be cleared 
a little later. I only mean to teach that his spirit's 
testimony is always in harmony with the facts as it 
knows them. If a child knows nothing but affusion 
as baptism, its spirit will testify in favor of affusion. 
But let the facts be fully given, and it will declare 
for immersion. Is not this the highest type of a 
witness ? 



EVIDENCE OF PARDON 201 

How does this witness testify? Like God's 
Spirit, it testifies through words, or their equivalents. 
A man is before a jury. He knows all the facts 
in the case pending. But he refuses to speak in 
answer to the questions of counsel and court. How 
long will it require to ascertain the testimony of 
his spirit? It can never be known until he chooses 
to coin it into words. 

Two important questions are now settled; viz., 
both of our witnesses are absolutely reliable, and 
both testify, not through fleshly sensations, dreams, 
etc., but through words. Well may we tremble if 
the testimony is against us; and well may we rejoice 
if it be in our favor. 

a. It Is Not a New Revela- 

3. What Is This tvt ^ r-u • ^ i. 

-, ,. - TioN. Many expect Christ to 

Testimony? -' ^ 

speak to them to-day as he did 
to the timid woman who touched his garment (Matt. 
9 : 20) , saying, "Thy faith hath made thee whole ;" 
or to the palsied penitent (Mark 2:5), saying, "Son, 
thy sins be forgiven thee;" or to the dying thief 
(Luke 23:43), saying, "To-day thou shalt be with 
me in paradise." The written word as found in the 
Bible is not enough. They expect the still small 
voice to make a new revelation to them. They 
seem never to have read these plain words: 
"According as his divine power hath given unto us 
all things that pertain unto life and godliness," etc. 
(2 Pet. 1:3). Notice the time of the verb— "hath 
given;" not, "will give." Almost two thousand 
years ago "all things" pertaining unto life and god- 
liness had been given; the forgiveness of sins per- 



202 HOW TO BE SAVED 

tains unto "life and godliness"; therefore all things 
on the subject have already been given. Why 
expect a new revelation? It is as unreasonable as 
to expect a special telegram to confirm a well- 
attested letter from a friend. If you will not 
believe his letter, what evidence has he that you 
will believe his telegram? If we will not believe 
the word of God in the Bible, why would we believe 
a special message from the same source? 

b. It Is Not Our Feelings. Multitudes rest 
this great mattei on the frail basis of fleshly feel- 
ings. If they feel good, they are forgiven; if they 
feel bad, they are not forgiven. They forget the 
feelings are largely dependent on health, the weath- 
er, our surroundings, etc. But salvation is independ- 
ent of all these. We may be saved in health or in 
sickness; in good weather or bad; and in spite of 
surroundings. They forget, also, that feelings are 
deceptive. As Jacob listened to the false reports 
ot his sinful boys, and looked upon the bloody 
coat ot Joseph, he felt that his child was dead. 
But his feelings deceived him. They seem not to 
understand that feelings are an effect, and not a 
cause. God forgives. This is a cause. The for- 
given soul is happy. This is the result. We do 
not know we are forgiven because we are happy, 
but we are happy because we know we are forgiven. 
But let no one conclude that we ignore, or even 
place a light estimate on, feelings. A religion that 
does not make one feel happy is a false religion. 
When God forgives, every emotion of the soul leaps 
for joy, and the lips sing the praises of Jehovah. 



EVIDENCE OF PARDON 203 

c. It Is Not Our Sincerity. Jacob was sincere 
when he said his boy was dead, and that he would 
see him no more this side the grave. Paul was as 
sincere when persecuting the church as he was, 
later, when he defended it, and gave his life as a 
sacrifice for Christ. Can you not recall cases in 
your own life, and in the lives of your friends, in 
which you were sincerely in the wrong? This fine 
element of character — sincerity — is found alike in 
the bosoms of those whose causes are just, and 
those whose causes are unjust, and hence it proves 
only the moral integrity of the man, and not the 
righteousness of his cause. 

A cruel illustration of this thought took place 
recently in one of our State prisons. The boy was 
not very bright, and some of his fellow-prisoners 
brought him what he thought was a regular pardon 
from the Governor. He believed it was genuine, 
and he leaped and danced for joy, and stood at 
the door watching for an officer to come and lead 
him out. He was happy as if it had been true, but 
his happiness did not last. His feelings deceived 
him. 

It the evidence of pardon is not in a new 
revelation, and not in feelings, and not in sincerity, 
what is it? 

d. It Is the Joint Testimony of These Two 
Witnesses. One points out the way to pardon, 
and the other assures us that we have walked in 
that way. God's Spirit says we must believe, which 
changes the heart; and man's spirit says we must 
repent, which changes the life; and man's spirit 



204 HOW TO BE SAVED 

says he has repented. God's Spirit says we must 
be baptized, which changes the state or relationship ; 
and man's spirit says he has been baptized. And 
when changed in heart, life and relationship, he is 
"a new creature in Christ Jesus." 

Now that we have this vital point made clear 
as sunlight, imagine an honest and intelligent Chris- 
tian testing himself. He looks within and asks 
himself if he has believed; and the answer is in- 
stantaneous, and without one vestige of doubt, that 
he does believe. There is no more doubt on this 
point than there is as to his existence. He knows 
that he is a believer. Looking within again, he 
asks himself as to his repentance; and the answer 
is as prompt and as free from doubt as before, that 
he has repented. With equal certainty he inquires 
as to his baptism, and thus the entire question is 
settled. To doubt now is either to question his 
own consciousness, or to disbelieve the word of 
God. And while reason reigns and rules he can 
not do the former, and until he becomes an infidel, 
he can not do the latter. 

A man is in the penitentiary. 
3. A Picture j^.^ ^^^^^^^ petition the Governor, 

and he is pardoned on certain conditions. With a 
happy heart he starts to his home. The sheriff of 
his county, not knowing of his pardon, meets him 
on the highway, and commands him to halt. "Why 
do you halt me?" says the man; "I have been par- 
doned." "What evidence can you give of your 
pardon?" answers the sheriff. "Well, Mr. Sheriff," 
says the man, "it is a strange story I have to tell, 



EVIDENCE OF PARDON 205 

but it is true. Last night about twelve o'clock, 
when all was dark and still in my cell, suddenly a 
light brighter than yonder sun shone about me, and 
I heard a voice saying, 'John Smith, you are a 
pardoned man.' " The sheriff coolly responds : "I've 
no doubt you think you saw and heard all this, 
and doubtless it would be all right in religious cir- 
cles, but it is a little too fanciful for the courts of 
Caesar, and you may consider yourself under arrest." 
But the man, laying his hand on his heart, con- 
tinues: "Mr. Sheriff, I feel that I am pardoned." 
"I do not question your feelings," answers the 
sensible but not oversentimental sheriff, "but feel- 
ings, like visions and voices, are not good evidence 
in our courts," and he is about to proceed with 
his prisoner to the jail. "Hold, Mr. Sheriff!" cries 
the man with much vehemence, "I declare to you 
that I am thoroughly honest and sincere!" "That 
may be true," replies the officer, "but, like every- 
thing else you've said, it is unsatisfactory as evi- 
dence in our courts, and therefore it is my duty 
to arrest you;" and his stern face indicates busi- 
ness; when the ex-convict pulls from his pocket a 
paper, saying: "Here is evidence which I know 
you will accept." And it proves to be a pardon 
from Governor Colquitt, of Texas, bearing the seal 
of the State, in which the man is pardoned pro- 
vided that on or before 1 p. m. of December 1, 
1913, he leave the State and never returns. "This 
is all right," says the sheriff. "Why did you not 
show it at first and save all this trouble?" 

At 12:30 p. M., December 1, he crosses the Rio 



206 HOW TO BE SAVED 

Grande River at El Paso, and takes up his abode 
in Mexico. You meet him an hour later, and ask 
him if he has been pardoned. What would he say? 
Would he answer that he thought so? he hoped so? 
he felt so? Certainly not. His answer would be 
prompt, clear and positive. He would say, "Yes.'* 
And then, if you should ask for the evidence 
on which he based this confident answer, he would 
tell you that Governor Colquitt promised his pardon 
on certain conditions, and that he had complied 
with those conditions. The spirit of the Governor, 
the pardoning power, had named the conditions of 
pardon, and the spirit of the man assured him that 
he had faithfully observed them; and therefore 
he had the highest posible evidence of forgiveness. 
Let the Governor represent God, and the pardoned 
man the sinner, and we have not only a true pic- 
ture of this most important principle, but one so 
simple that all can understand. 

Review. 

1. Does God desire our happiness? 

2. How many witnesses testify in our study? 

3. How do they testify? 

4. Give the negative side of the answer. 

5. Give the positive side of the answer. 

6. Illustrate the whole question. 

THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




017 660 013 5 



. * V 






.^1 



1 .'/W 






^ »;»^ 

..•»». 



•11 



.. -f-^'. 



• 'J 






